Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Tulane University/Urban Economics (Fall 2020)

Urban Economics covers applications of economics to cities and regional issues. Topics covered include regional economies, agglomeration, economic development, housing policy, the economics of crime, discrimination and disparities in criminal justice and housing, and transportation economics.

I plan to have students write or edit an article on an urban economics topic as a course assignment. There are very few articles on urban economics on Wikipedia, and even the &quot;Urban Economics&quot; article is rather lacking in content.

I am also hoping we can assist with reducing gender and race/ethnicity disparities in terms of the content and people that are written about on Wikipedia. My course has a strong focus on race and I am refreshing it with content that is relevant to contemporary debates about racial bias, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc. I will try not to get my students to edit controversial topics, but rather I will guide them to consider writing on topics or about individuals that are underrepresented. This may include, for example, writing articles on notable economists of color and/or female economists who research urban economics (there appear to be few articles about urban economists, and the only articles i've found in my quick search were of white men).

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

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.)

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 3
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

Week 4
Respond to student and professor feedback on your proposed article options, revise your list if necessary, narrow down your list or start finalizing your article topic.

Week 5
By this date, you need to have either secured approval for me for your project or have make some good progress towards getting that approval. At a minimum you need to have contacted me to send me your tentative idea and group. Note that you can change your topic or group later. To complete this milestone, please submit the &quot;Article/Group Idea Submission Form&quot; on Canvas. Please do that if we've already talked separately. I want to have everyone's up to date status in one place and this form lets me see that. Thank you!

Week 6
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 9
What am I supposed to be doing here? At this point you need a draft article, outline, or plan that is complete enough that you could receive useful comments on it. You do not have to have everything completed or perfected. For example, you could include draft portions and notes. Or you could outline the sections, points, or portions of your article, section, edit plan. It needs to be something that your classmates can comment on so they can see what your plan is and provide some comments or ask questions.

When is this Wikipedia &quot;Speed Dating&quot; class happening?

If you are in ECON 3320-01, i.e. the MWF section, it will be: Friday Oct. 23

If you are in ECON 3320-02, i.e. the T Th section, it will be: Tuesday Oct. 27

Who am I submitting or showing this draft this to? You will not be submitting this draft to me. For this Wikipedia &quot;Speed Dating&quot; in class activity, you will not be submitting anything to me. There is nothing for you to do on Canvas relating to this.

Rather you'll be providing your draft/outline/plan to your classmates for feedback in class. In groups, you'd take turns explaining your idea and showing your classmates your draft/plan/outline.

How should I construct my draft article/outline/plan so I can show it to my classmates during the in class &quot;Wikipedia Speed Dating&quot; session? For showing your draft to classmates, you could follow the suggestion below about using a sandbox (see &quot;Prepare your article draft for peer review&quot;, below). Once your draft/outline/plan is in your sandbox, you can link your classmates to others to it so they can see it.

However, if you don't have your draft/outline/plan in a sandbox yet by the time this &quot;Wikipedia Speed Dating&quot; class comes around, another option would be for you to put it into a Google document and provide your classmates with a link to it. Just be sure to turn on &quot;anyone with the link can VIEW/EDIT&quot;.

How do I constract my draft/outline/plan in a sandbox? The best option would be for you to prepare your article, outline, or plan in a sandbox. Here is the sandbox training again so you know what I mean by sandbox -&gt; https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students/drafting-in-sandbox/using-a-sandbox-v2

Here are some tips, by article type, for how you could get your draft into your sandbox:

New articles: If you are writing a new Wikipedia page or article, then you may want to use this template within your sandbox to get started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template

New / significantly updating a section: If you are writing a new section to an existing article, or are signnificantly updating a section on an existing article, then you could just put the draft section into your sandbox. Include any writing you've done so far. If it's not a complete draft, then include notes on what is missing that you'd add in later or change.

Edits throughout an article: Is your plan instead to make edits throughout an article, such as cleaning it up? Or fleshing out two sections a bit more? Great, that will be useful. You could present your draft two ways:

a) Just summarize/show the edits you'd make by listing them in your sandbox. It could be a list like &quot;I plan to: 1. Add X to section Y, 2. Add more sources to point A in section B...&quot;

b) Copy-paste the article into your sandbox and make the edits there. This may make it easier for everyone to see where your edits fit into the article, although it may not be clear, unless you make it clear, what your changes are (warning for later: when moving your edits live, i.e. put them on the real Wikipedia, you will want to add the edits individually to the existing article rather than copy-pasting over the old article with yours)

It's up to you if a) or b) is best. The goal here is for you to present your draft edits or your edit plan to your peers so they can provide feedback, so go with whatever format makes it easy for others to see what your plans are so they can comment on them.

Week 11
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 12
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 13
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

Week 14
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!

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