Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Columbia University/Graduate Seminar in Conservation Biology (Fall 2019)

This course offers a graduate-level seminar in conservation biology, focusing on reading classic and more recent primary literature published in the field to better understand why species become threatened (and extinct), the anthropogenic causes of species declines, and common practices to preserve species and ecosystems.

Each student will identify an existing article that needs improvement or will propose a new article (although the former is strongly preferred) on a topic of their choice related to the course material. Students will have the full length of the semester to complete their contributions.

Week 1
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia

Week 2
Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

Exercise
Evaluate an article

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Thinking about sources and plagiarism

Exercise
Choose a topic

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

What's a content gap?

Exercise
Add a citation

Finalize your topic / Find your sources

Week 5
Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have questions using the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Ecology

Environmental Sciences

Science Communication

Species

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 6
Complete a draft of your article- which will be peer-reviewed next week. You should add at least 10 new references to your article and have added/edited a significant portion of the page (for short articles) or have added to/edited a significant portion of one sections (for articles that are already long).

Complete your draft in the sandbox by first pasting in text from the article you are working on, and then making changes within that text.

Thinking about Wikipedia

Week 7
Guiding frameworkUse the guiding framework to understand how best to shape your peer review. You may choose to 'leave a message' for your peer in their talk page- but please also copy your review and include it in the assignment pane on our courseworks site for grading.

= Leave a message =



When you have reviewed your peer's article, you should leave a message on their User Talk page (unless your instructor encourages you to do it some other way). Leaving a message on a User Talk page is different than leaving one on the Talk page of their sandbox (remember that every page on Wikipedia has a Talk page), and will notify them (whereas, leaving a note on their sandbox will not).

To find a user's Talk page, go to the Students tab on the Dashboard and click on their username. You'll see the Talk link at the top left of the page. Click &quot;New Section&quot; on the Talk page and enter your message. Remember to sign with four tildes! (Elysia (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:36, 20 December 2019 (UTC))

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Week 8
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
 * Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.

Week 9
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the &quot;mainspace.&quot;

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

Nominating your article for Did You Know

Exercise
Add links to your article

Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

Week 11
Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Week 12
It's the final week to develop your article.


 * Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
 * Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!

Guiding questions

Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.