User talk:Mike Cline/USCAN Working Group Drafts/Future Picture

Mission statement
I edited the mission statement to emphasize our goal of improving Wikipedia.en, especially the roles of helping educators and editors. I also dropped references to Wikimedia Foundation -- we will be wholly independent. Furthermore we cannot predict in 2012 what Wikimedia Fdn goals will be. I dropped any a priori commitment to open source philosophy. That is much too controversial among our target audience of educators. (Advocates say it implies free access to journal articles regardless of the financial blow to journals and authors of scholarly papers.) Rjensen (talk) 04:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with some of these edits, but I think some good material has been lost, and I also think the scope is still open. Some comments:
 * Our scope definitely doesn't include non-English projects (though we need to be clear on whether Quebec francophone universities are included), but I recall we discussed whether our scope could include other Wikimedia projects in English, such as Wiktionary. I thought the conclusion was that we would regard them as in scope, although initially our focus would be on Wikipedia.  So I would suggest putting back "innovative uses of Wikimedia projects", perhaps making it "English-language Wikimedia projects".  However, even this is somewhat open to debate, since in DC we discussed whether e.g. New Zealand or South Africa were in scope for us.  The consensus there was that initially they were not, but at some point in the future they might be, though instead they might be supported by local equivalents to the US/Canada EP.  I believe the structure task force is going to make a recommendation on this point, but I suspect "English language" is too broad for now.
 * You cut most of "information literacy, improves the breadth, scope and quality of Wikimedia project content as well as growing editor participation". Surely "information literacy" (perhaps with a different word choice, per the current email discussion between Diana and Mike Cline) is a good goal?  And I also like "breadth" and "scope": this speaks to diversity which implies improved scope as well as improved quality for articles in the current scope.  And "growing editor participation" was also an explicit goal, I believe, so I think that should be put back in.
 * -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Just stepped into this as I was away. We need serious discussion and consensus on this future picture before making wholesale changes.  This is not a WP article.  Also, this is NOT a mission statement. Much of the work to be done by the task forces may eventually contribute to the modification of this future picture.  Indeed this is the place to have these discussions, but I would ask everyone to make proposals for wording changes with rationale so that the entire Working Group can weigh-in before we actually edit the Future Picture.  We have several months to work through this, so lets not act impetuously or prematurely. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:54, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * On the question of non-English projects, I'm not sure why they're so obviously excluded. Even setting aside the francophone universities in Quebec matter, it excludes participation of foreign language (and possibly other) courses taught at anglophone schools in Canada and the U.S. Sgelbman (talk) 14:31, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion of "Free Knowledge Movement"
At present there is no consensus around inclusion of "Free Knowledge Movement" in the future picture. I believe the task force: U.S. Canada Education Program Scope and Philosophy (Richard Jensen) has a desired effect that will address the position of the working group on this issue. When that task force has completed its initial work, we can address this in the Future Picture. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:13, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * We are very clearly a part of the free knowledge movement - in fact Wikipedia is itself the most significant aspect of that movement IMO. This does not, however, imply that we should have strong policy stances, other than supporting free "wiki-like" projects as part of an expanded information ecosystem..--Pharos (talk) 19:51, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Pharos that whatever organization we create will be part of the free knowledge movement in the sense that it will support programs that use Wikipedia. At the same time, I have concerns about the emphasis placed on the free knowledge movement in the future picture especially in light of some controversy in the academic community about "free knowledge." I would be open to limiting references to the free knowledge movement in our future picture. Pjthepiano (talk) 17:56, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Pharos and Pjthepiano, and would emphasize that we need to work with professors and with scholarly societies -- most of which publish scholarly journals that are not free to the public. Rjensen (talk) 18:00, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thirded. Our work will support the Free Knowledge movement, namely by facilitating the creation of PD educational material on Wikipedia. But to make it an emphasis would confuse some of our academic partners, and pull energy away from the main focus of the org.  The Interior  (Talk) 01:15, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Projects versus Wikipedia
At present there is no consensus as to whether this enterprise is only concerned with English Wikipedia or has broader interest in all Wikimedia projects that can be used in education. This is a fundamental issue as the current program is supporting multiple Wikimedia projects--Commons, Wikipedia, etc. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:17, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * the consensus is that our project will become independent of Wikimedia Foundation. We can take useful materials from any source we like, so there is no need whatever in specifying WMF projects. Let's nail down a key point: I propose we state that the primary mission involves wikipedia.en -- allowing for the possibility that an advanced class on, say, French philosophy, might work on say the French edition of Wikipedia. The ed program exists and has a track record that demonstrates all the courses have focused on wikipedia.en. Rjensen (talk) 06:09, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Not all; for example, a Children's Literature course last fall focused on Simple English Wikipedia, not wikipedia.en. It seems unduly limiting and exclusionary to specify a focus on .en as part of the EP's mission. Sgelbman (talk) 14:42, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a point of information: my students work on Commons. We make video content that, while initially embedded in WP.en, is ultimately used across many language editions of the encyclopedia as members of the broader community choose to incorporate it. From an educational standpoint, one valuable dimension of Wikimedia projects is their global scope. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, but I am much more interested in the larger set of Wikimedia projects and free culture movement than a narrow focus on improving the quality of the English Wikipedia. That said, I recogize that if the focus is on building a non-profit organization it is much easier to do this within a national context. --Jgmikulay (talk) 14:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Alternatives
The table above is designed to layout the various options regarding the scope of projects that could be supported by the US-Canada Education Program enterprise. There are essentially three pairs of alternatives: Language (English or All languages), Project: (Wikipedia or all Wikimedia projects) and Geography: (North America or Global).

The enterprise Future Picture should establish boundaries that keep its workforce--volunteer and staff--aligned as well as guide those decisions necessary to achieve the Future Picture. If the Future is too restrictive there is a high probability volunteers and staff won't be aligned. If there is latitude and descretion in the Future Picture, then latitude and descretion can be built into the enterprise processes and infrastructure and the probability that volunteers and staff will be aligned is high.

Please comment on discuss the above by refering to a specific option #. (Option 1 is the current text) Makes following the discussion easier. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 20:40, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Please note for options 4 and 5 that North America includes countries such as Mexico and Panama in addition to the US and Canada. I suggest replacing "North American" with "US/Canadian".
 * I prefer a variation of option 1 that would say:
 * In June 2015, the US-Canada Education Program is:
 * providing human, curriculum, and other incentive resources to support on-going and innovative uses of Wikimedia projects in education in the United States and Canada;
 * promoting free knowledge and information literacy in the United States and Canada, especially in formal education;
 * improving the breath, scope and quality of Wikimedia project content in the United States and Canada;
 * growing editor participation in the United States and Canada;
 * promoting the role of Wikimedia projects in the free knowledge movement in the United States and Canada.
 * Pine✉ 02:41, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly oppose inclusion of "free knowledge movement" rhetoric; in practice it means that scholarly journals can't charge subscriptions, which would be fatal to most of them and would cause serious problems between our project and many journal editors. It is not helpful to this project because our target audience (educators & students) already have free knowledge access through their school libraries. Rjensen (talk) 15:32, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that it would be best to remove the language about the free knowledge movement. Supporting Wikimedia projects via the work of classes will benefit those projects, which is a good thing; I don't see that we have a remit to do anything beyond that to support the goals of the free knowledge movement, and keeping the language in there seems likely to discourage some possible participants.  Benefiting Wikimedia is good; expanding that to an ideological goal that goes beyond Wikimedia projects seems unnecessary to me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 15:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Seeing how this issue could distract from other parts of our project, I struck it from my proposal. Pine✉ 00:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't you also need to strike the last bullet? A separate point: I think we should remove "in the United States and Canada" from bullet 3; the Wikimedia projects aren't in the US and Canada, at least not in any sense that matters to the EP.  We're simply improving the projects.
 * With these changes I would support this version. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * We can tweak #5 to include "and other programs designed to improve Wikipedia.en." We are breaking away from Wikimedia--or more exactly, being tossed out from the inner circle. There is no reason to lock the new enterprise into Wikimedia projects in 2015 or later that we know nothing about now.  Our remit is education in the US and Canada, and so far all the actual educational projects that we will be taking over in fact focus heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia.en  That is a VERY LARGE remit, with 4 million articles to attend to, and more than enough to absorb all our energies. Rjensen (talk) 10:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Heavily, perhaps, but not exclusively, per the examples given above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:02, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * What is gained by non-inclusive language (i.e. anything except #1)? Sgelbman (talk) 16:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * My objection is that we should not tie our project to whatever future programs Wikimedia Foundation may develop. There are many other foundations and educational enterprises out there which are exploring online education. We need to be clearly tied to a real product (editing Wikipedia) which is where all our constituents (in the current ed program) are at. The mission statement should therefore allow us to work with any education program. Rjensen (talk) 21:40, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I would tend to agree with Shamira that there isn't really anything to be gained by non-inclusive language, and in fact would take it further to be open to online education projects that are "wiki-like" beyond the Wikimedia Foundation.--Pharos (talk) 19:37, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I'm missing it, but is there another option - to include Wikimedia projects in the US and Canada? It would include non-English and English projects, but would specify that the organization would use its funds to support only those programs in the US and Canada. Frank's point is a good one - maybe we should let the task force hash this out and then revisit it later. Pjthepiano (talk) 18:29, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Put me in the inclusive camp. It seems there is little to gain by limiting ourselves at this point.  Stakeholders may feel left out if they work with Commons, for instance, and bilingual programs would also be left out in the cold.  I'd like to think our mandate would be to help who we can: i.e., if a Canadian professor approached us about a project involving translations from en-wp into the Cree wikipedia, we would give what assistance we could without Cree-language experts.  In terms of regional considerations, I think our focus should be US-CAN (because that is what we are experts on) but that we shouldn't limit, and that we could bring on Australian experts to help with Australian projects, or whatever comes our way.  I know there was some talk in DC about how some American funders may only want to fund American iniatives, but we should cross that bridge when we come to it.  The Interior  (Talk) 01:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking in my volunteer role, I generally favor an open approach ("free knowledge"). I would also recommend to highlight in the future picture document that Wikipedia might always play a bigger role than the other projects (Wikimedia Commons, Open Streetmap). I believe that being open to teachers who want to work with open knowledge projects other than Wikipedia would be a good thing. Just think of geography professors who let their students create free maps or professors of media and communications like Jennifer who was super successful in letting her students create free videos. Both free maps and free videos will enrich Wikipedia in the end and I would not want to exclude people who are eager to contribute content other than text.
 * Also – and still speaking as a Wikipedian –, I agree that "education in the US and Canada" is the common denominator.
 * Speaking as the Wikimedia Foundation sponsor: wouldn't it be more efficient if we let the "Scope" workgroup peope do their work and then make a decision based on their input? I guess they're going to come up with a list of different options, pros and cons and a recommendation. I fully trust Richard Jensen and the other people on that taskforce to come back to the group as a whole with a well prepared document. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 17:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Information Literacy ??
Diana Strassman raised this question with this comment: ''A minor question re the Working Group Wiki: the term "information literacy" is heavily used in the draft. To avoid this wording (it could mean different things to different people and is a bit jargony), is there some other word choice that would work? Thanks!''

I responded with this: "I don't think "Information Literacy" is jargon and it is a term that the reference librarians at MSU use all the time. I think it is mainstream thinking from a librarian perspective.   See: Information_literacy  If you have a better suggestion please bring it up.  Any words we use will always have different meanings to anyone unfamilar with the subject.

Diana responded with: ''Re this word choice, it does depend on whom we see as our audience. If librarians, then I do agree with you. However, the academic and policy circles that I work in use different words to express such ideas, and I hope we also view them as part as our target audience. This issue does suggest that we carefully follow our Guiding Principle #3. I will be happy to suggest alternative wording, but am not sure how to do so to this document. Please advise.''

--Mike Cline (talk) 14:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * This is the place to propose additional wording. If there is mainstream terminology used in academia that isn't covered by "Information Literacy" then we should include it. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Diana, what alternative terms would you suggest for "information literacy"? Pine✉ 02:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

-- Etlib (talk) (Chanitra) Information Literacy possible alternative wording

Would could use information fluency instead of information literacy. I think information fluency is used more frequently in academia (with the exception of librarians) and may be familiar to more people. At Indiana University the campus general education requirements refers to information fluency which is essentially the same as information literacy. Etlib (talk)


 * I do like "information literacy" or "digital literacy", or something of that family; it expresses well the core of our work, and even emphasizes a certain civics value. The broad employment of the basic notion of "literacy" and multiple "literacies" could be quite a powerful tool.--Pharos (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that Information fluency is actually a better term as it is more encompassing than Information literacy if one is to believe this:

--Mike Cline (talk) 19:43, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Depending on what definition you use, information fluency would encompass both information literacy and digital literacy. I suppose whatever term we decide to use, it would be good to link to a definition for those who are unfamiliar with the terminology. Etlib (talk)

Discussion on our role
from Rjensen: this revealing discussion has been ported over from Wikipedia talk:User access levels Rjensen (talk) 05:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sageross, you wrote, "(Right now, that would simply be the existing Regional Ambassadors who were selected by Education Program staff, as well as the staff themselves. In the future, the selection process will be fully community run.)" How do you know that the selection process will be fully community run? The US-CAN Education Working Group is some distance away from making a lot of decisions, and to the best of my knowledge we haven't begun any discussion of how regional ambassadors will be appointed after the hand-off to the new structure. It's possible that RAs will be appointed by the new structure similar to how WMF appoints them today. Those decisions are yet to be made. Pine? 07:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Whatever the decisions the working group comes to about a new structure for the program, it won't give any independent group authority over how things work on Wikipedia. That is, and has been even since the beginning of the WMF's education programs, ultimately under the control of the community. The community was gracious enough to let WMF try some things out with the Public Policy Initiative and since then. Whatever comes out of the working group will have to be okay with the community too. If it's not, that's a sign that things have gone very wrong. (Note the example of the Pune Pilot, which went badly enough that it wasn't okay with the community.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 11:51, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * the Ambassadors program was not created by "the community" (which I suppose means all wiki editors) but by Wikimedia, which selected the Ambassadors from its San Francisco office. Wikimedia is now turning the US-Canada program into a new independent entity (to take effect next spring). "The community" is well represented on the planning committee (on which I serve), so I don't see any serious conflicts ahead. (The Pune Pilot fiasco happened in India and involved American misunderstanding of how India works.) Rjensen (talk) 15:41, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Rjensen that there has been substantial WMF activity in the education programs that hasn't been directly under the control of the community, with the education namespace implementation being an example. I think a more accurate statement is that the community generally hasn't made make systematic objections to the education programs with the notable exception of the IEP problems. It would be helpful if we had something like the old Steering Committee or my proposed Board of Education to have an institutionalized on-wiki community role in the education programs. In the absence of that, it's still not clear to me how ambassadors are to be appointed after the transition, especially regional ambassadors who currently have their IRL qualifications evaluated by WMF. <font style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#008C3A 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#01796F -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><b style="color:#01796F;">Pine</b><font color="#01796F">? 20:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In my opinion the Wikipdia community is poorly organized except in a) dealing with crime and punishment; and b) perhaps handling military history and c) perhaps dealing with libraries and museums.  Otherwise it's anarchistic and inattentive to outside forces (like higher education) and initiatives (such as those by Wikimedia. Setting up the US-Canada Education project --has the potential for getting a great deal done. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * RJ, I take strong exception to your comment about the enWP organization:  There are many people on the enWP, including yourself, and Sage, and a number of others, who are quite aware of the requirements of higher education, and have worked very successfully with them,  within the admittedly chaotic nature of the ordinary WP--a way of organization I continue to believe is our greatest strength. The people who have not been aware of the needs   have been the people working on this from the Foundation--both in the wildly elaborate and unworkable first plans for what the program could rapidly accomplish, and some particularly unfortunate subprojects which it is hardly necessary to mention here.  The parts that have worked well have done so because of the talents and dedication of some of the individual ambassadors and faculty. The structure that we develop for carrying this program further should be indigenous to us, and developed on-wiki.  The foundation has a role in developing what the community fails to accomplish, but everything positive in this direction so far has been done by the enWP community. The structure which is being proposed that we should adopt and work with is, like all aspects of the educational program so far except for individual courses, top-heavy and over-administered.  Sage says above -- and I rely on what Sage says for most of my discussion here because I know that he does understand the problems,  "When professors and classes are a good fit for the community — and figuring out how to screen for such has been a key priority of the WMF team since the end of the PPI "  Figuring out how to screen for this has proven to be one of the things the WMF is totally unqualified for. They are inherently as incapable of it as they would be to screen for proper article content.
 * The reason the community has not made systematic objections is that there has been no discussion open enough to publicly object to. Sage is certainly right that the community supports the concept-- I think the community to the extent it knows the structure, has a feeling somewhere between indifference and contempt for it. It is entirely typical of previous work on this under Foundation auspices that we should be rushed into this sort of major decision. It is absurd to establish user rights for some yet undefined purpose under some yet undefined control.
 * I see no need for any of the user rights. If the project is on the enWP, I do not see what harm comes from open editing--Sage, is there any indication that course pages and the like have been tampered with? Are we that sure we have the right structure for course and ambassadors that we want to enshrine it?  The way for the program to go ahead within enWP, is to go ahead  as a workgroup, without special privileges.
 * RJ assumes the final structure will be an independent organization distinct from the Foundation and the enWP.  It's the typical mode of administrative thinking: structure first, people second, and content nowhere.  From what I understand Sage to say, he thinks Sage agrees it's still uncertain, but from what he says above, he thinks it should be part of enWP, and hopes the community will accept it. I've heard others suggest it should be under the Chapters, but if he wants to set up an organization, it's his perfect right. If the foundation wants to recognize it in some manner which has yet to be defined, let alone accepted, they have the right to do so.  It's our right to keep it separate entirely from enWP, even conceivably to the extent of having it produce material for one of the other wikiprojects.   Perhaps we will have alternative programs, and instructors will follow the one that suits their needs.      DGG ( talk ) 04:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * DGG has a much higher opinion of the links between the community and higher education than I do -- I did mention good links with the library world but there are no links I have ever seen with any dean or VP or department chairman or (almost) any scholarly organization. That's an astonishing gap. The comment that "RJ assumes the final structure will be an independent organization distinct from the Foundation and the enWP" is correct and that is how I read the current consensus of the planning committee and the Foundation. In my opinion based on running 30+ summer workshops since 1968 is that professional training programs are expensive. That means they must be funded, and an organization is necessary for that which is independent of en.Wikipedia (which is not competent to handle money and disdains $) and WMF (which has decided to prioritize work outside the US and Canada.  The comment "structure first, people second, and content nowhere" is exactly the reverse order of what I have been proposing, but that is the sequence mandated by the WMF. My thinking is that the new US-Canada education organization should (in addition to the current classroom program) start to partner with WikiProjects, such as the Military History one. I see a major role in helping the active editors making better use of the resources controlled by higher ed (classes, journals, scholarly conventions).  Rjensen (talk) 05:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)