Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of British Columbia/ASTU260 (Summer 2015)

ASTU 260 | Knowledge Dissemination: Communicating Research to Public Audiences

This assignment focuses on the public circulation of knowledge about our course topic, “Knowledge Dissemination: Communicating Research to Public Audiences.” How is scholarship in this field currently being represented on Wikipedia? How might you add to or strengthen this representation? There are two major components to this assignment: a gap analysis and a proposed Wikipedia entry.

Week 1

 * Create an account
 * Enroll in the assignment

Before you begin, familiarize yourself with the Wikipedia community and its conventions. Start by reading about Wikipedia’s Five Pillars. Then complete the first two modules (“Welcome” and “The Core”) in the Wikipedia Training for Students guide. Please review Wikipedia's guidelines on [Wikipedia:Notability|notability] and reliable sources.

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Handout: Editing Wikipedia Resources: Online Training for Students

Part 1 - Gap Analysis
Choose a topic related to knowledge dissemination; examine how this topic is represented in Wikipedia (e.g., an article dedicated to the topic and/or a subsection of an article). You may investigate a course-related concept, social movement, person, or institution. You are welcome to move beyond material we have covered in class, providing your chosen focus is clearly tied to the dissemination of research knowledge (if you are not sure, then check with me). Identify a gap in how this topic is currently covered, explain how you found it, and why it is significant (how does its absence potentially impact readers interested in this topic?). In your analysis, also explain what this gap suggests about the public circulation of research knowledge (to do so, engage one or more scholarly sources). In other words, how does your gap analysis confirm, challenge, or contradict current scholarship on the public circulation of scholarly research.


 * Length: approximately 250 words plus Works Cited (following MLA style).


 * Note: please approach this gap analysis as an academic genre, addressed to scholarly readers such as myself and your peers.

Part 2 - Proposed Wikipedia Entry
Given the gap you have identified, how would you address it by revising, expanding or adding a Wikipedia entry? Find 5 references (as defined by Wikipedia, and write a proposed entry (or section of an entry) to address this gap. Your references should include 2 scholarly sources (minimum) and may include sources in languages other than English.


 * Length: 250 words, minimum, plus a listing of your five sources (following Wikipedia’s guidelines on citing sources, if they are online sources, provide hyperlinks).


 * Note: please approach this entry as a public genre, addressed to a general readership, which would include both experts on and non-specialists interested in your topic.

To offer you some possible entry points, my preliminary searches on Wikipedia (August 10th, 2015) revealed the following: *Dedicated entries on Open Access, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Mobilization, and Knowledge Translation but not on “Knowledge Production,” “Knowledge Construction,” or “Knowledge Dissemination”


 * Entries on Intellectual and Female Public Intellectuals


 * Entries on TED (conference), Aaron Swartz and The Conversation (website)

Submit Your Assignment

 * Submit assignments to this page

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Resources: Evaluating Wikipedia,

To participate further in the course’s focus on translating research knowledge, initiate a conversation with the Wikipedia community invested in your topic. You may choose to do this once you have a final draft or after you receive feedback from me on your assignment. Again, this is entirely optional and will not impact your course grade.

On the “Talk” page of the entry you have proposed revising, introduce yourself as a student who has participated in this course (you could link to our course page on Wikipedia), explain the research you have undertaken, and share your proposed revisions for their feedback. Alternatively, if you have proposed creating a new entry, then post this information to the Talk page of a Wikipedia Project that monitors your topic.

As you know from the Wikipedia student training modules, community members engage in ongoing peer review, disagreeing with a contribution and explaining their reasoning, recommending revisions, and/or supporting a proposed change. Your experience might take place only on the Talk page or, based on community feedback, you may then post your revisions to the entry: in either case, it should be an interesting learning experience.

Please let me know if you choose to do this activity, as I would be interested in reading the exchanges that follow.

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This assignment i inspired by and adapted from one designed by Sasha Welland for her course at the University of Washington, Global Feminist Art.