Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Urban Economic Development fall 2010

Course description
This course is designed to provide a broad survey of urban economic development theory and practice in the United States. As such, it focuses on the problems and issues of urban economic development, and the design, implementation, and success of strategies intended to generate or regenerate economic development. While the class deals primarily with urban development in the U.S., many of the issues, problems, theories, and policies addressed in the class are applicable to many regions throughout the world, particularly in developed nations.

Assignment overview
For this class, students will write a case study in groups of about seven. Projects may be either analytical or qualitative. Qualitative case studies will provide a practical example of one or more of the major elements of urban economic development that are covered in the first two-thirds of the class. Analytical case studies will provide an application of at least two of the analytical methods covered in class to an urban region. These methods include location quotient analysis, shift-share analysis, input-output analysis, and cluster analysis. The results of the regional analysis will then be utilized to identify potential economic development policies or programs for either the region or for smaller units of analysis within the larger region.

Case studies should translate the theoretical components of the course content into implementation experiences and critical evaluation. They may encompass either a positive example(s) that demonstrates the success of a theoretical or context element of urban economic development, or a negative example(s) that addresses actions that do not work due to the failure to comply with such elements. Essential components of the presentation and report will be: a literature review of relevant theoretical concepts on Wikipedia, a critical analysis as to why a program/project succeeded or failed based on the theoretical and conceptual content covered in the class, and a description of elements of entrepreneurship that were included in the program/project. The program/project that you select must be current, either still in progress or completed within the last five years. Programs/projects that have been completed and for which evaluative data are available would be most desirable.

Each group will add a summary of the contextual, theoretical, and methodological elements of the course that their case study addresses to Wikipedia. Each group is required to contribute to at least one article, but they are encouraged to contribute to more (e.g. a group could create the article “Work force development” and contribute to the article on the specific program they are investigating). In contributing these articles, it is important to abide by Wikipedia’s polices, particularly their rules about “verifiability” and “no original research”. This means that debatable material must have a citation to secondary, peer-reviewed research and that no critical analysis which is the opinion of the author may be added to the encyclopedia. While the “Critical Analysis” and “Conclusions” section of the report ask you to analyze the successes and failures of the program, Wikipedia asks you only summarize and organize the published material about a topic.

Assignment timeline

 * Aug. 31 - Introduction to Wikipedia
 * Between Aug. 31 and Sept. 21:
 * Students will read the materials about Wikipedia uploaded to the course website
 * Students will create a Wikipedia user account
 * Students will be encouraged to make some edits to their user pages or to a sandbox


 * Sept. 21 and 22 - Wikipedia labs
 * Between September and October labs, students should do at least one of the following tasks per week:
 * Select a mentor
 * Improve the clarity of a sentence or two in a public policy article and leave a comment on a public policy article's "Talk"/"Discussion" page
 * Find an image on Commons and add it to their user page or a public policy article; or upload an image to Commons that they have taken themselves
 * Use a reading from the course to add a reference to a public policy article
 * Personalize their userpage


 * Oct. 5-7 - Students will form groups and start thinking about what topics they want to research.
 * Oct. 19 - Wikipedia lab
 * Oct. 26-28 - By this time, groups need to have chosen a topic and be in the midst of their reading. Bibliographies of relevant research should be posted to Wikipedia articles and/or talk pages.
 * Oct. 29 - Nov. 22: Begin making contributions to Wikipedia. During this time, post in small increments. Use the Discussion (a.k.a. “Talk”) page(s) to ask questions and organize your thoughts for the rest of the article.
 * Nov. 23 - By this time, groups should have finished their research and should begin posting their contributions to Wikipedia articles. Ideally, groups should post their contributions in small increments throughout the month of November, asking questions and organizing their thoughts on the talk pages of the articles.
 * Nov. 23 - Dec. 8 - During this time, Wikipedians will comment on the articles and offer suggestions for improvement. It is the responsibility of the group to respond to these suggestions.
 * Dec. 9, 11:59: Wikipedia article(s) due.

Students
This is a list of students and their articles, which students will sign up for at the appropriate time.
 * - not specified
 * - tbd
 * - Coming soon
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - tbd
 * - Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development
 * - Coming Soon
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Urban Economic Development Initiatives in Detroit
 * -Economy of Pittsburgh
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Evergreen Cooperatives
 * - Workforce development
 * - Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development
 * - Coming Soon
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Urban Economic Development Initiatives in Detroit
 * -Economy of Pittsburgh
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Evergreen Cooperatives
 * - Workforce development
 * - Urban Economic Development Initiatives in Detroit
 * -Economy of Pittsburgh
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Evergreen Cooperatives
 * - Workforce development
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Evergreen Cooperatives
 * - Workforce development
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Evergreen Cooperatives
 * - Workforce development
 * - Pathways out of Poverty
 * - Evergreen Cooperatives
 * - Workforce development