Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Courses/History of Design and Digital Media (Michael Mandiberg)/Students

Students
Add your username to the list here using the format for Example User below:

Important tips
FAQ/Editing will give you all the information you need to edit pages and start your own. Read it! Help:Contents and Tutorial are very useful, too.
 * RTFM! :)

I suggest doing some practice edits on various pages, just to get a feel for how things work. You can start by adding material to your user page, but try to edit real articles, too. If you add some constructive content to relevant Design and Digital Media related articles, you may be --Ericaray16 (talk) 22:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)eligible for extra credit.
 * Practice

If you are drawing aBold text blank as to what you should edit for practice, there are many places you may want to check if you want to improve your Wikipedia-editing skills by editing Wikipedia. Feel free to check the following pages:


 * Cleanup
 * Pages needing attention
 * Peer review
 * Translation into English
 * Pages needing translation into English
 * WikiProject Countering systemic bias

Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in (if in the top right corner of the screen you see "log in" button, you are not signed in!). If you are not signed in, course instructor (Michael Mandiberg) will not be able to verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.
 * Create an account and sign in every time you edit

When creating a new account, think about the nickname you want to use here. Consider:
 * this is a publicly viewable project – do you want to use your real name (or even your last name)?
 * you may want to keep editing Wikipedia in the future – chose a nickname that you won't find annoying in a few years...
 * or you may never want to edit again, and don't want to be associated with this work (which will remain public for years to come)

Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes ~ to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking. You can also just press the signature button.
 * Talk pages

You can chose to create an entirely new article related to Design and Digital Media, if the topic you'd like to write about is missing. You can also expand an existing Wikipedia article related to Design and Digital Media, if there is ample room for expansion (rule of thumb: if the article has only a few sentences, it is a good choice for expansion, if it has a few long sections, probably not). Most articles assessed as a "stub" qualify for this assignment. There are many Design and Digital Media related articles to chose from: see here.
 * Selecting an article

If you are drawing blank on what article you could create or expand, there is a list above of example of an articles that should be created or expanded. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.


 * Important tip: try to chose a subject that you are interested in. It's much easier to write about something interesting than it is to write about something boring!

As soon as possible, your group should agree on a topic and get in touch (by email) with the course instructor (Michael Mandiberg) so he can verify it is a good topic. You may want to select one or more subjects and list them in the order of preference, in case your first choice is rejected, to save time.

We are not doing any original research. You will not be collecting data, analyzing it, or writing about your experiences. We will not be witting an essay with personal opinions or judgments. Instead, we will be writing an encyclopedic article, summarizing an existing, verifiable state of knowledge from a Design and Digital Media related area. See Wikipedia in brief for a short list of what an encyclopedic article we will be writing here is.
 * What kind of an article are we writing?

The simplest way to understand the style you are supposed to follow is to examine articles that have passed GA or FA. You can see Wikipedia Good Articles from the section "Arts and Architecture" here. Presently there is only one Design related Good Article: Design management, and one Typography one: Canons of page construction. We are going to change this.
 * Style

The technical details are explained in the Manual of Style, but I find just looking at already-written articles much more helpful then studying the collection of the rules.

If you want to learn how to write nicely, check this guide:
 * How to satisfy Criterion 1a – despite the weird name, it is a very useful set of suggestions

At the top of this page you will find a "how to" for nomination. There is also a dedicated guide for nominating good articles. If you can nominate it sooner than the deadline, the better for you – every day gives you more time to read comments by the reviewers and address them. Remember: you may get max score (25%) even if you don't address all the comments of the reviewer in time (particularly if he posts them very late); but addressing them and passing through the GA process guarantees you the max score (25%) for this assignment. The assignment does not end with the nomination, you will likely have to fix various issues pointed out by the reviewer. If the reviewer posts useful comments, you should do your best to address them; of course this mean you may disagree with him if you think you know better (reviewers are not perfect).
 * Getting the article assessed as a GA

Useful links:
 * Good article criteria
 * Guide for nominating good articles
 * Good article review cheatsheet
 * Good article nominations
 * The differences between good and featured articles

Wikipedia is a project with millions of editors, who collaborate on all articles. We don't own the articles we work on. Don't be surprised if you receive comments from editors who are not part of the course, or if they do edit your article. All editors are here to help; don't hesitate to get extra help – Wikipedia has ton of places you can do so.
 * We don't own the articles

It is likely that over the course of the project, you will receive messages from editors outside our course, and that they will make edits to your article. Be polite in replying, and don't hesitate to ask them to explain something.
 * Expect to interact (politely) with others

A. Don't work on a draft in Microsoft Word. Work on a draft in the article on Wikipedia. This way your colleagues (and instructor) will be aware of what you are doing the instant you do so, and can comment on it sooner.
 * Work on Wikipedia

B. Don't exchange comments by email. Exchange comments by using article's talk pages, for the same reasons as above (unless you are certain that your discussion have to stay private). If you like to receive email notifications, you can monitor the article's talk pages (and your own userpage talk page) by subscribing to that page RSS feed (see Syndication).

Remember: gaining experience with wiki software may be more important to your future career than detailed knowledge of the History of Design and Digital Media. In 2007, Technorati's chief technologist stated that in five years "knowledge of wikis will be a required job skill". Do the math.

Plagiarism is not only against the college and course policies, it is also against Wikipedia policies (see WP:PLAGIARISM). And attributing somebody doesn't mean cut and paste jobs are allowed (WP:COPYVIO). Violations of plagiarism/copyvio policies will result in lower grade and other sanctions (per university's policy). Please note that the course instructor is not the only person checking constantly for plagiarism and copyright violations; the Good Article reviewer will do so as well, and Wikipedia has a specialized group of volunteers specializing in checking new contributions for those very problems (you don't want your work to appear here or here!). In particular, note that extensive quoting is not allowed, and changing just a few words is still a copyvio (it doesn't matter if you attribute the source). Bottom line, you are expected to read, digest information, and summarize it in your own words (but with a source). For more info see: this plagiarism handout, Copy-paste, Quotations, Close paraphrasing, a guide from Purdue University.
 * Plagiarism and copyvio warning

You can always ask the course instructor for help. You should not hesitate to ask your fellow students from other groups for help, for example if you see they have mastered some editing trick you have yet to learn. We are here to collaborate, not compete. If you can lobby and get help/assistance/advice from other editors to improve your work (for example by using New contributors' help page, Requests for feedback, Peer review, Help desk or Reference desk), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps. See also "how to get help" handout. 
 * Getting extra help

This is not the first time Wikipedia has been written in classroom before. Based on other students past experiences, here are practices that have helped other students increase their learning and increase their grades.
 * Advice from other students who have done this before
 * read the "getting extra help" tip above
 * try to complete the extra credit assignments outlined here
 * complete WP:TUTORIAL and edit some Wikipedia articles "for fun" early on; experience gained will be very helpful
 * work on a draft on Wikipedia, in the article; don't work in Microsoft Word or such
 * keep an eye on your userpage discussion page, and on article's discussion page, where other group members and other Wikipedia editors – and the instructor – may leave you tips, advice and other comment
 * remember its a collaborative assignments. Work with your colleagues from the first day on a single wiki-draft. Groups whose members work alone and try to combine their parts a day or so before the final submission don't do very well.
 * don't focus solely on your own sections. Help your teammates by proofreading their section, see if they have trouble with things you've figured out.
 * image questions? See this image uploading handout, this uploading image video tutorial, Images, and in particular, the Finding images tutorial and the Picture tutorial. Try to avoid looking for images on "the web", focus on the Wikipedia's sister project, Wikimedia Commons, which has millions of images that can be used on Wikipedia without any restrictions.
 * reference questions? Revisit the Tutorial/Citing sources and watch a video tutorial on how to add footnotes and proper references to your article.

Grading
The term assignment is worth 50% of the final score. Out of that, you get 25% for finishing things on time, and 25% by the quality of your final work. We will not be doing the full good article review, as previously planned, as we are working in individual projects, rather than group projects. Your instructor will evaluate your work. The premise will be the same, except that the expectations will shift down one level. B-class will earn the full 25 points.

Here is a description of quality classes for an article. What we are aiming is is the GA-class (or above, but the GA-class will guarantee you max points). Read carefully what the lower classes (B, C, start, stub) lack and make sure your article is better!

Here is a checklist for article quality. If your article follows those guidelines, even if the the official Wikipedia reviewer fails to pass it as a Good Article, you may get your unweighted 25%:


 * Paper is on one of the subject that was approved by the instructor
 * Paper includes intro summary (lead in the Wikipedia terminology), at least 3 body paragraphs per group member, conclusion, and bibliography
 * There are no grammatical/spelling errors throughout the paper (that does include absence of spurious capitalization, like Sociology instead of sociology and so on)
 * Introduction summarizes the subject properly and does not include unique information not present in the main body of the article
 * Conclusion sums up the paper without ending abruptly
 * Paper is structured logically, and there are no weird gaps (Note: "weird gaps" occur for example when you chose to write about a historical trend, but your group "forgets" to research few centuries in the middle; or when you are presenting an overview by country, but decide that few random countries are enough, because you use an arbitrary "two countries per group" member rule instead of thinking which countries are important to cover for the subject discussed)
 * Sources used are reliable
 * In-paper citations are present and used correctly according to Wikipedia format see Citing sources
 * In-paper citations are done in a consistent format, and provide all the necessary information (in brief: author's name, publication title, publisher information, page number if source has pages, URL if source is online, see ASA style for details)
 * Body of the paper explores the chosen subject in adequate detail. (Note: “adequate detail” means I shouldn’t be able to do a quick literature search and find information not included in the paper. I want you to search current and past literature, books, newspapers, websites, etc. and summarize all the information you find into an easy-to-read and understand paper. If you are missing major bits of information, or have included incorrect information without citations to back up your findings, you will lose major points here).
 * Paper should conform to Wikipedia writing standards (Neutral point of view, No original research)

With regards to getting the full activity score:
 * Your group members will expect you to be easily reachable to discuss the paper, and come to their meetings
 * Your group members will expect you to do "your share" of the work
 * I will grade your activity based on two primary factors:
 * Whether you contributed to your paper on a regular basis (every few days) or not
 * Whether you were active on the article's talk page. This means that I see that attempted to address and fix any and all comments/suggestions given by me, your colleagues, the reviewer and the Wikipedia community. If the change was not made, adequate explanation was given (which did not include "this is for an research assignment, so leave us alone)

How to fail the assignment:
 * plagiarism, or extensive quotations
 * letting others do all the work and hoping you can still get some points
 * missing deadlines
 * logging in an editing only at the very end of the course, where you discover you are not sure how to edit Wikipedia, and that your contribution does not really fit the articles your other members were working on
 * not participating in the talk page discussions

Reflective Essay
The Wikimedia Foundation has asked that all students complete |this short survey to help with further classes. Please do this.

Reflective paper

Write a short (2-5 page) reflective essay on your experiences using Wikipedia. Some of the questions you may choose to reflect upon include:


 * The ways in which writing for Wikipedia is different from writing regular papers for class.
 * What you learned about Wikipedia.
 * This could be a reflection on the technical or social aspects of editing. This could include a discussion of:
 * the Discussion page
 * the History page
 * the role of users
 * the role of collaboration.
 * Wikipedia's rules (which are slightly different than the rules of writing course papers)
 * Has your relationship to Wikipedia changed?
 * Do you see it differently?
 * Do you trust it more or less?
 * Did you learn new research methods in this course?
 * Did you put methods you already knew to use?
 * Was there more or less research involved for this Wikipedia entry then for your other writing assignments?
 * Did working on Wikipedia, with its insistence on citing every source, make it easier or harder to insure that your writing was well researched?
 * Will this assignment change the way you complete other writing, and if so, how?
 * How do you feel knowing that the words you wrote are likely to be one of the very top search results for the person you were writing about?
 * How do you feel knowing that these words could be modified or rewritten by the next person to come along (with the hope that they would be making them better)?

([ Click to return to your main course page and continue.])