Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Update/5 October 2010

Volunteer assessors still needed
The Public Policy Initiative is actively recruiting volunteer assessors for a large-scale measurement of article quality on Wikipedia. The Initiative's research analyst, Amy Roth, is still looking for a handful of public policy experts and Wikipedia experts to assess article quality (email her at aroth@wikimedia.org if you're interested). Already, assessors have begun discussing some interesting facets of the review process. Check out the Assessment talk page to join the discussion.

Foundation participates in Michigan event
At the University of Michigan, the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching hosted a seminar given by Professor Anne McNeil, the Wikimedia Foundation's Frank Schulenburg, Michigan student club founder Cheryl Moy, and student Se Ryeon Lee. The seminar showcased how to implement a project centered around editing Wikipedia in higher ed courses to approximately 40 UM faculty and graduate student instructors. The seminar created a lot of excitement and good discussions around how each of the professors would adapt the project for their own courses. The Wikimedia Foundation's Pete Forsyth and Annie Lin will be participating in a similar event on Princeton's campus this week.



New screencast added to Resources section
The Public Policy Initiative's online facilitator, Sage Ross, is creating screencasts for professors to use in classrooms to help their students learn Wikipedia basics. His latest tutorial walks through how to create a sandbox, for playing with wiki formatting or drafting your first article. Watch the new video and see other materials (such as the Welcome to Wikipedia brochure, a creating a userpage handout, and suggested interactive lessons) on the Resources page.

Check out one professor's course page
Professor Chaim Kaufmann of Lehigh University and his students are participating in the Public Policy Initiative this fall — the students have all adopted Online Ambassadors as mentors and have made their first edits. They're in the process of picking their article topics now. Have a look at the course page for Seminar in Intervention for more details.