Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Update/25 January 2011

Blog series highlights fall students' work
The Wikimedia Foundation's blog is currently running a series of profiles of students from classes who participated in the fall term of the Public Policy Initiative. So far, the series has featured two students from Syracuse University and one from Georgetown University, with two more profiles to be released later this week. Read the profiles at the Wikimedia Foundation blog.

D.C. WikiX conference features Public Policy Initiative
Public Policy Initiative Online Facilitator Sage Ross and Campus Ambassador PJ Tabit were on hand at last weekend's WikiX conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Wikipedia Ambassador program. More than 80 attendees learned about the work the Campus Ambassadors and Online Ambassadors are doing as part of the Public Policy Initiative. Learn more about the WikiX conference by reading the Signpost coverage.

Preliminary assessment data now available
Public Policy Initiative Research Analyst Amy Roth has released some preliminary findings of her work to assess the quality improvement to Wikipedia articles. Her data, now available on the WikiProject U.S. Public Policy Assessment tab, shows that the metric developed for this project is in line with the existing Wikipedia rating system ("WikiProject 1.0 ratings"). Wikipedian assessors rate articles with a high degree of consistency, and Wikipedians are the toughest critics of article quality and tend to rate articles lower than public policy experts do. Learn more and see graphs on the Assessment page.

Michigan State student paper covers Initiative
The student newspaper at Michigan State University is the first to cover the spring term of classes participating in the Public Policy Initiative. The article does a nice job of providing an overview of the Initiative, and it includes quotes from the participating professors, the Campus Ambassadors, and students in the courses. Check out the article.