Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/York University/Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2024 (Winter)

BIOL/ENVS 4095.30 Applied Plant Ecology Due date: Friday 29th March 2024 11:59 pm Please be sure to post the link to the article(s) that you edited in the e-class forum

WRITING PROJECT: LEARN TO CREATE OPEN ACCESS WIKIPEDIA KNOWLEDGE For 20% of your total mark you will update Wikipedia pages related to the course topics, including your group talk topic or to your blog posts or your Tik Toks and Instagram posts. As long as you add 10 new/different references to course-related Wikipedia pages, you will get the 20%. This is 2% for each separate/distinct reference added to a page(s).

In this assignment, you learn where web-based Wikipedia content comes from (spoiler: it comes from Wikipedians or community editors, 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 ten years ago 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 an important and useful exercise this is for students!

Your task: In this assignment, you are NOT creating new Wikipedia pages, but rather adding references to support existing Wikipedia page(s) about one or several applied plant ecology topics of your choice. BUT, the pages must be directly related to the course topics and lectures and assignments.

You will add TEN different references in total. This needs you to write some text to support the inclusion of each reference. This text can be very short or a sentence to paragraph. When added to articles including those related to your Applied Plant Ecology group presentation topic (another assignment), the WikiEducation dashboard documents your work automatically. The main thing we are doing is to insert references to strengthen the Wikipedia Open Access Online Encyclopedia. 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 but 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 course-relevant Wikipedia page(s) that need editing to improve and expand the content. To help you, I have added a list of pages related to the course with banners saying that they need improvement. You can find your own page(s). You might zero in on a rare plant species, or an invasive species, and add several journal articles to a section that lacks references.

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 10 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!