Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Update/1 March 2011

UCSF features Wikipedia in keynote speech
Wikimedia Foundation Head of Public Outreach Frank Schulenburg delivered the keynote speech at the University of California at San Francisco's Career and Research Days 2011 last week. Frank's talk covered the ways Wikipedia is being used in higher education through projects like the Public Policy Initiative. The UCSF student newspaper published an extensive interview with Frank prior to his speech that describes the ways to use Wikipedia in higher education. Read the article.

New screencast covers how to use RefTools
RefTools is a toolbar gadget on Wikipedia that makes it easy for users to cite a source -- and the latest screencast available for students and professors to use shows how to use the tool to add a reference to your Wikipedia article. Created by Online Ambassador GorillaWarfare, the video shows how to use the tool to cite websites, news articles, books, or scholarly journals.

Campus crew presents at Presidio Graduate School
Campus Team Coordinator Annie Lin and two Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors - Max Klein and Joni Spigler - co-led a presentation about Wikipedia on Thursday, February 24, at Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. Topics discussed include Wikipedia's history, current use as a teaching tool, five pillars, and community norms. Max also led a brief hands-on workshop on the nuts and bolts of wiki-editing, which included a live demonstration of how to "move" (rename) the article about Presidio Graduate School to reflect the institution's recent name change - a move that prompted excited applause from the audience. See the article Max edited during the hands-on workshop.

We're looking for a few good assessors!
If you have a graduate degree in public policy and a desire to contribute to the largest collaborative project in history, please volunteer to evaluate articles with the Public Policy Initiative. You will read about interesting topics and assess the quality of the articles you read. The assessment process has been streamlined this spring to make your involvement as easy as possible. The commitment time is minimal, but the value you add is HUGE! If you are interested, please contact Research Analyst Amy Roth.