Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/York University/Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2022 (Winter)

BIOL/ENVS 4095.30 Applied Plant Ecology Due date: Friday 8 April 2022 11:59 pm Please be sure to tweet me the link to the article(s) that you edited using our hashtag #biol4095. This counts as one of your tweets!

WRITING PROJECT: LEARN TO CREATE OPEN ACCESS WIKIPEDIA KNOWLEDGE For 15% of your overall mark you will update wikipedia pages related to your group talk topic or to your blog posts or your Tik Toks and Instagram posts.

In this assignment, you will learn where web-based Wikipedia content comes from (that's Wikipedians like you're all learning to be), and how to create web-based content yourself. You will also learn about Open Access, Metadata and discoverability.

I first launched this assignment in 2014 with the help of Steacie Librarian, Mr. John Dupuis. I was inspired by the idea of the Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon projects aimed at getting more Wikipedia entries for Female Scientists (Twitter hashtag #WomenSciWP). Over the years, I have come to realize just what a useful exercise and project that this is for students!

Your task: In this assignment, you will not be creating new Wikipedia pages, but rather adding to an existing page(s) about one or more applied plant ecology topics of your choice. They must be related to the list of student lectures that your groups will be giving in March to April 2022. You will add five references which involves some text (short or long) to the main article on your Applied Plant Ecology topic and you will insert the references. The handy reference editor makes this easy!

For a handy online guide to Editing Wikipedia, see this excellent article by UofT graduate student, Ms. Farah Qaiser: https://sisterstem.org/2019/03/07/wikipedia-editing/

Directions: First, make a Wikipedia account. Please DO NOT use your real name for this and choose a username that is a pen-name of some kind. You could choose a username that is the Latin genus name of your favourite plant, tree, flower or fungus!

Next, find a relevant Wikipedia page(s) that you will edit to improve and expand the content.

Next, list the Wikipedia page(s) name(s) (title), and its URL link on the e-class forum for the Wikipedia assignment that I will make for the course in the Wikipedia assignment module. Please also list your Wikipedia username: this allows me to view and review your edits and additions when I am NOT in Wikipedia as an editor.

Please improve the page with a MINIMUM of FIVE references. Each statement or sentence you add to an article -- it might be a short paragraph -- must be backed up by a 3rd party reference. On the Wiki Edu dashboard, I will see the name of the student, your Wikipedia page link, the new text and all of the references to back up what you say about the person’s life, research and significance. Cool eh?

Have fun learning to do open access work!

Week 8
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.)

Some students already chose to write about a post at our course blog about your experience learning to become a Wikipedian. One of your open book final exam questions will be for everyone to go back to the page(s) that you edited for your Original Wikipedia assignment, and to add 5 references to the list, plus to write a blog post about what you have learned about being a Wikipedian. If you already wrote a blog post, you will write a second post -- kind of like a before and after doing the WikiEdu training modules, which are much more comprehensive than what I covered in lecture. Prof. Bazely

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 9
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

Week 10
If you already added all the citations and references you could find, then add 5 to another Plant Ecology Wikipedia article

Week 11
Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

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

Films

Week 12
Guiding framework

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

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 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

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.

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!

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.

Week 14
Please add a 6th blog post to our website for this mandatory final exam question