Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Updates

This page gives ambassadors and professors the opportunity to share what's going on in the classroom with the community. The US Education Program has grown to include so many Campus Ambassadors, Online Ambassadors and courses that ambassadors may not know what's going on in other regions. Here, we can all collaborate to improve communication and indicate any significant milestones or issues. Let's also use this page to document some common problems in the classroom, but let's please use the USEP talk page or the Ambassador talk page to suggest improvements for the program itself. If there is an incident that requires action, such as a copyright violation or conflict of interest, that should be posted at the Education Noticeboard

Week of May 13th

 * I just learned about Ambassadors/Research/Article quality, where ambassadors are reviewing articles. Part of this reviewing system includes a scale where students can judge (based on their scores) whether it would be a good candidate for GA or FA. If your class has been using DYK or GA to get peer reviews, please use this instead so as not to flood those systems with articles that may not qualify. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 18:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Class timeline milestones

 * Wikipedia Teahouse launched to new editors. The hosts are supporting five classes in the US and Canada for the Spring 2012 semester. Jmathewson (talk) 23:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ontario is moved from the Great Lakes region into a new region encompassing all of Canada. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 01:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia_Education_Program_Northwestern_University_logo.svg Students enrolled in Criminal Process at Northwestern University School of Law have submitted proposals to create 17 new Wikipedia articles by the end of the semester!  Two are complete already (see Success Story below)!  IvyLaw  (talk) 22:40, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Students working in United States Education Program/Courses/Language Development (Cecile McKee) presented their semester of work in class yesterday. Only 40 of the 101 students in the class did the project so they showed the rest of the class what they did and taught them how to get started on Wikipedia.Semccraw (talk) 16:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Success stories

 * This page got started! Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 00:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I discovered the Teahouse and left a comment, and a host responded. I really did not understand what usefulness the teahouse would have or who would want their services. The next day I started talking to this class who had started their Wikipedia project and needed review, and I was thinking, "How am I going to get people to check out these students' work?" Later in the day I put it together and thought of asking the Teahouse to help... but before I made the request, I saw that a teahouse host had already found the class and invited all the students there. Not only did a solution throw itself at me, but when I was too dense to notice it immediately it even threw itself at my problem. Thanks, Teahouse team!  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   01:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Our Ball State course students have been coordinating their topic proposals with me. Some great ideas for viable new articles and article expansions.  My favorite: a proposal for an article on the new Kurt Vonnegut Public Library in Indiana (I'm a huge Vonnegut fan!)  Good communication (prof Webster Newbold has been communicating through email as well).  The Interior (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I just reviewed my subregion's goals set at the beginning of fall last semester-- start up activities in Milwaukee (done) and double the activity in the region (done). In fact, the professor in Milwaukee has stuck with us for two semesters now, so that's exciting! Goals for the upcoming 2012-2013 calendar year: expand to the next largest city in each state (Detroit, Louisville, and Green Bay), as well as the best university (according to Forbes) in each state (Centre College, Hillsdale College, and Lawrence University). Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 00:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia_Education_Program_Northwestern_University_logo.svg The following two Wikipedia articles have been completed by students enrolled in Criminal Process at Northwestern University School of Law: (1) People v. Newton and (2) Ham v. South Carolina  IvyLaw  (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Our class United States Education Program/Courses/Language Development (Cecile McKee) created two stub articles, Manual babbling and Recast (language teaching). They were really excited because the second article became a start-class! Semccraw (talk) 16:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Problems & what we are doing about them/learning from them

 * Since we had forty students working on the project United States Education Program/Courses/Language Development (Cecile McKee), which wasn't the whole class, we had a really hard time coordinating who was doing what. The students ended up making two user pages that they could work on as a group, User:Teamwork341 and User:Presentation341. This ended up helping them a lot and helping the professor and me know what was going on. Also, we were concerned about how we could find everything so that the grading team could grade it so we had the students type up a document detailing what they worked on and including links on how the grading team could find it. This helped a lot. Semccraw (talk) 16:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Success stories

 * I received notification of this article about a class at Ohio University who participated in the WEP for the first quarter of 2012. Jmathewson (talk) 23:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Jami! I was going to post it but you beat me to it. My students and I felt very successful about the Wikipedia project we did in Writing & Rhetoric II at Ohio University. We did research at the University Library's Special Collections/Archives and updated University related Wikipedia articles based on this and other research. In the process, we increased student/public awareness of the Library Archives (a goal of the Librarians/Academic Archivists at Ohio U), improved Wikipedia articles, and increased awareness among academics (esp. in the library but due to the article-across campus) about the possibilities for pedagogy Wikipedia offers. So thrilled!  Matthewvetter (talk) 00:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Problems & what we are doing about them/learning from them

 * Some ambassadors and community members are concerned about the Online Ambassador selection and removal process. As this page should act as an overview of in-the-classroom problems/issues/successes for ambassadors to quickly review, I am moving the discussion to the Ambassador talk page. Please continue your conversation there. Thanks! Jmathewson (talk) 20:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I am one of those community members. I've posted this multiple places but received no satisfactory reply. I reviewed a good article nomination by one of your Online Ambassadors who is on the Online Ambassadors Steering Committee. The article failed because the ambassador doesn't understand what copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing was. See Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1. The ambassador attacked me for my review. Now a second reviewer has failed the article today for the same reasons. See Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA2. This Online Ambassador does not understand how to write an article without misusing sources. Please address this issue. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I filed a formal complaint at the proper site. Ambassadors/Steering Committee/Ambassador Recall Process We'll see if anything happens. I expect nothing! MathewTownsend (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Other updates

 * Our developers have been working hard on getting a MediaWiki extension put together specifically to help the Wikipedia Education Program. We're opening up a test website so anyone who's interested can help us beta test. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 16:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Rob, I'm having trouble accessing the link. IvyLaw  (talk) 21:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The site was down yesterday for several hours; it's up again. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 17:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Still not working :-( IvyLaw  (talk) 20:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It appears down right now, but it really isn't. Try . Someone has been working on fixing the structure of the URLs, and that's having adverse effects on the link I spammed all over the place. Rob SchnautZ (WMF)  (talk • contribs) 21:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 21:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Class timeline milestones

 * A Ball State University graduate course completed their Wikipedia assignments. Jmathewson (talk) 19:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems like some of these are still in the sandbox, none of them have gotten community review, and for the writer's block article, the student wrote completely original content for an existing article. Hmm...  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   19:56, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe their links are to their sandboxes, but you can find the work they added to the main namespace if you search for those articles. That's how I looked over some of what they added. Jmathewson (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia_Education_Program_Northwestern_University_logo.svg All students enrolled in Criminal Process at Northwestern University School of Law have user pages and talk pages!   IvyLaw  (talk) 20:31, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Students in the Aaron Frank's Environmental Law class at the University of San Francisco created accounts, had first Campus Ambassador presentation, and made their first minor edits. They are now choosing topics. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:24, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Success stories

 * Wikipedia_Education_Program_Northwestern_University_logo.svg The following Wikipedia article has been completed by a student enrolled in Criminal Process at Northwestern University School of Law: Cruz v. New York  IvyLaw  (talk) 20:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Our OA has been incredibly helpful in assisting with my class, helping turn around some of the backlash and getting the students set on the right track. Debaser42 (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Other updates

 * Administrator frustration and backlash against a UMass Amherst course moving pages from sandbox to main space. Maximilianklein (talk) 04:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * A professor asks me: "maybe there's a way that the teachers can communicate more effectively with the ambassadors / editors when there will be a mass exodus to main space?" Maximilianklein (talk) 16:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You might be able to coordinate with the OAs on this if you plan far enough in advance. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 20:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Class timeline milestones

 * Students' articles in a class at LSU went live on 3/20 after some OAs gave feedback in their sandboxes. Jmathewson (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Success stories

 * Wikipedia_Education_Program_Northwestern_University_logo.svg The following Wikipedia article has been completed by a student enrolled in Criminal Process at Northwestern University School of Law: North Carolina v. Pearce  IvyLaw  (talk) 19:56, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Success stories

 * Just received notice of this article about a class at Rice. Jmathewson (talk) 17:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Success stories

 * An article from the Ball State course, about a new memorial library for author Kurt Vonnegut, was featured as a DYK. The Interior (talk) 15:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Problems & what we are doing about them/learning from them

 * Too many DKYs are being submitted on the same subject from a specific course. Please see Big Five personality traits and culture and Articles for deletion/Dimensional approach to personality disorders for examples. Five articles on the same subject "Big Five traits" have been submitted recently to dyk as part of a class requirement.
 * See Article banners for a specific psychology course that is listing these articles for the students and urging them to get DYKs.
 * Is there adequate supervision over these courses to prevent this kind of thing from happening?

Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 18:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Can you please elaborate on why this is a problem? The folks at WP:DYK have been providing very helpful reviews, and the articles the students are creating are often much better candidates than those created by your average new editor. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 20:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I spoke with Laura Hale over IRC and she was able to clear up what the issue is here. I agree; we can't have WP:DYK submission as a requirement in a course without making sure students understand and follow the rules of DYK. This is being addressed. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 21:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you can get a sense of the frustration at DYK by reading Talk:DYK - Studend created psychology articles on the nominations list and Talk:Ambassador-DYKs and students. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Class timeline milestones
Students working on affective science articles in the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory at Northeastern University added their content to the live versions of the articles! So far, these are Emotional expression and Emotion classification. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Success stories
An article that had been significantly improved by one of my students, Structuration, received GA status this week. MyNameWasTaken (talk) 22:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool! Pine(talk) 07:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)