User:Samantha (Wiki Ed)/Berkeley Water Group Idea Lab

DRAFT
This course page is a resource for students within the Berkeley Water Group Idea Lab. BWGIL students are participating in a pilot program with Wiki Ed aiming to encourage extracurricular editing through student projects. Students will be asked to make contributions to articles related to water, sanitation, and hygiene on Wikipedia. On this page please find links to our online resources, trainings, and more.

For questions, contact Samantha at samantha@wikiedu.org. This Course Page may change. Check back for updates as Spring semester continues.

Pre Work

 * To be completed before Feb 23rd
 * If you haven't already, create a user account.
 * Take a moment to look at Wikipedia's username policy and consider how anonymous you would like to be on Wikipedia. You need not use your real name, although many Wikipedians choose to do so. Try to pick a fun username—at least one you'll remember.
 * When you've chosen a username, click "Create account" at the top right and follow the instructions.
 * Adding an email address to your account is strongly recommended; this allows you to send and receive emails with other editors. (Your email address is not revealed when other users contact you.) You can also receive email notifications whenever pages you are interested in get changed, if you wish. And if you forget your Wikipedia password, you can have it emailed to you — but only if you add your email address to your account!
 * Complete the online training for students. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.
 * Create a User page, and and click the "enroll" button on the top left of this course page.
 * Research and list 3–5 articles on your Wikipedia user page that you will consider working on as your main project. Ask Samantha for comment.


 * Milestone:
 * All students have Wikipedia user accounts and are listed on the course page.

Initial Workshop

 * February 23rd, 600pm
 * Overview of the pilot program
 * Introduction to editing with Wikipedia
 * Wikipedia culture and etiquette, the concept of sandboxes and how to use them.
 * Open discussion of the concepts of neutrality, media literacy, and the impact and limits of Wikipedia.
 * Meet the Wikipedia community!
 * Q&A session with Samantha and/or Wikipedia Ambassador about interacting on Wikipedia and getting started with writing.
 * Demo making an edit & uploading images and adding images to articles.
 * Wikimedia Commons
 * Share experiences and discuss problems.

Fieldtrip
Wiki Ed will host a field trip for interested BWGIL students. The field trip provides a set editing goal of improving the Wikipedia page for the field trip location & subject. On the trip we will take photos, gather resources, and have fun! learning about a topic we're passionate about. We may prepare for the field trip by finding resources such as newspaper clippings and journal articles about the subject or location of the field trip that we can contribute to the article page. As a group, we can debrief after the field trip about what information we think should be included in the Wikipedia page and practice our editing skills by contributing that information.
 * date TBD
 * Possible field trip locations
 * SF Water Treatment Plants
 * Crystal Springs Reservoir

Follow up workshop, field trip debrief

 * date TBD
 * Formally discuss the field trip and what edits we think should be made to a Wikipedia page on the subject.
 * Add final touches to your Wikipedia article.
 * Answer any editing questions for personal projects.


 * Milestone
 * All students have started editing articles or drafts on Wikipedia.

Terms end
You made it!


 * Milestone
 * Students have gained professional development in their field, as well as media literacy, editing, proofreading & research skills!

Selecting your article
Before selecting the topic you will research, remember to review this guideline for selecting an article. Most important points:
 * To begin, check the available literature in your course work, class readings, or academic journals. Are there important people, things, theories, or events that aren't developed very well on Wikipedia? Search Wikipedia with a few different search terms to be sure.
 * Try to choose a "stub" or "start-class" article to expand.
 * Verify your topic's notability.
 * Search Wikipedia to see if this content already exists.
 * Make sure you have enough reliable sources to cite your contributions.
 * Work with a relevant WikiProject whenever possible.
 * If you're still stuck, check out this handout for more ideas.

Tips for personal Wikipedia projects

 * To prepare
 * Critically evaluate an existing Wikipedia article related to the club, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's talk page.
 * Article selection
 * Add your article to the class’s course page.
 * Reach out to Samantha for questions.
 * Start small!
 * Add 1–2 sentences of new information, backed up with a citation to an appropriate source, to a Wikipedia topic of your choosing.
 * If you are starting a new article, write a 3–4 paragraph summary version of your article—with citations—in your Wikipedia sandbox.
 * If you are improving an existing article, write a summary version reflecting the content the article will have after it's been improved, and post this along with a brief description of your plans on the article’s talk page.
 * Sandboxes
 * How to use a sandbox for existing articles: When you start to revise larger chunks of an existing article, it's a good idea to draft your first significant edits into a sandbox. Don't copy the whole article, just choose the small piece you want to work with. Trying to rewrite an entire article in a sandbox can be annoying to editors who work on that article. Other editors will keep making good edits or expansions to that article while it's in your sandbox, which you'll kick out if you just copy and paste! Focus on small chunks of the text you want to edit instead. It's polite to use the talk page of the article to link to your sandbox when you copy things over. That way editors can see what you're up to, and post suggestions to the talk page before you start. Once you are happy with your sandbox draft, you can place another notice on the talk page of the article with a link to the sandbox, explaining what you've done and asking for comments on it once you've added it to the main page.
 * In general, the sooner you move out of a sandbox, the better. Then, watch the Talk page for your article. You may receive more feedback on your edit once it "goes live" compared to when it is in your sandbox.
 * Watchlist
 * When you add an article to your watchlist, you also watch the corresponding Talk page, so if someone responds to your article edits on the Talk page, it will show up on your watchlist.
 * Sources
 * Compile a bibliography of relevant research and post it to the talk page of the article you are working on to help keep track.
 * Look for news clipping, journal articles, and more.
 * Help eachother
 * Begin working with classmates and other editors to polish your short starter article and fix any major issues.
 * Select two articles that you will peer review and copy-edit.


 * Handouts
 * Handouts: “Uploading images” and “Evaluating Wikipedia article quality”
 * Handouts: Choosing an article
 * Handouts: Citing sources on Wikipedia and Avoiding plagiarism on Wikipedia
 * Handout: Moving out of your sandbox