Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Update/21 December 2010

Syracuse takes the lead by a nose
In a neck to neck race, dark horse Syracuse nosed ahead of Georgetown. After Georgetown's "Introduction to the Study of the Arab World" had been #1 out of the gate, with more content added per student than any other class, students at Syracuse are now poised to win the Public Policy competition as we enter the home stretch. Syracuse student SoAuthentic jockeyed for position with improvements on the article "Martin J. Whitman School of Management", Syracuse University's business school. SoAuthentic is now #2 in the student ranking, a mere 30 thousand bytes behind Amfarr21 from Georgetown. Will Syracuse be able to win both the course and the individual student competition?

It's coming down to the wire. Stay tuned.



Ambassador to lead Educause workshop
Georgetown University Campus Ambassador Yonatan Moskowitz will be running an online workshop on Wednesday, January 5, at 1 p.m. ET through higher education technology site Educause. Yonatan will be discussing how Wikipedia is being used in the classroom, through his experiences this fall with the Ambassador program at Georgetown. Registration for the hour-long Educause Live session is free. Sign up here.

APA executive director calls for Wikipedia editing
The American Psychological Association's executive director, Steven Breckler, calls for subject matter experts from his organization to start contributing to Wikipedia. Instead of decrying the inaccuracies, change them, he says. He mentions the Public Policy Initiative by name, and encourages his members to start similar projects to improve the psychology articles on Wikipedia. Read the full article.

Advisory Board member receives top MLA honor
Dr. Robert Cummings, one of the members of the Public Policy Initiative Advisory Board, will receive the Modern Language Association's prestigious Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for his book, "Lazy Virtues: Teaching Writing in the Age of Wikipedia," which encourages the use of Wikipedia as a teaching tool. According to the selection committee, Dr. Cummings "provides authentic ways of using Wikipedia to make student writing matter to them and others." Read more about Dr. Cummings' award.