Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Consumer Reports/Volunteer Corps (summer 2015)/Timeline

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Before class

 * Bookmark this course page!
 * Review this syllabus
 * Class will start Tuesday 26 May 2015


 * Assignment to complete before class:
 * While logged into your Wikipedia account, click here to enroll in this class.
 * As with the last class iteration, anyone can edit any Wikipedia article which they choose. For those who wish to consider it, below is a list of social issue topics which may be of interest to anyone who might want to participate in online activism through education.


 * Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - this is one of the most viewed articles on Wikipedia and probably the most used source of information on this topic. Any edit to any part of this will likely lead to discussion. I would comment with anyone who wished to jump into this. Consider also the less-developed and less reviewed articles on Health care reform in the United States, medical home, health insurance marketplace, or any related concepts like Fee-for-service.


 * Sustainable energy - This is a perpetually popular topic of international interest. Related topics include Fossil-fuel power station, Solar power in the United States, United States Environmental Protection Agency, and everything else covered in Energy in the United States.


 * Any consumer financial products - any topic within the scope of interest to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could be interesting


 * Telecommunication or anything related to Communications in the United States - The world is looking to the United States for precedent on how to manage their own telecommunications. The Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger and Net neutrality articles are vehicles for increasing mutual understanding for all stakeholders with varying perspectives on the issues.


 * Genetically modified organism, Regulation of the release of genetically modified organisms, Genetically modified food, and Genetically modified food controversies are all very popular Wikipedia articles on confusing topics.

Tuesday May 26 - Review of last class series; and anatomy of a Wikipedia article
In the last class series the four sessions were as follows:
 * Why Edit Wikipedia? - We covered philosophy of editing and online publishing.
 * Editing basics - We talked about the technical and social process of editing Wikipedia.
 * How to ask questions - We considered the options for asking for help about anything wiki-related.
 * Tour of Wikipedia - We looked at Wikipedia broadly, and surveyed related Wikimedia projects including Wikisource, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons.

In this course we will review the anatomy of a Wikipedia article.


 * Assignments to complete for next week
 * Look at Evaluating Wikipedia, a 6-page brochure which reviews what we covered in the last class
 * Choose a Wikipedia article to edit and make a personal plan to add some sentences to it by the June 16 class.

Tuesday June 2 - Wikilinks
Suppose that a person chooses to edit a Wikipedia article. To what extent does the information added in one article change the coverage of related topics on Wikipedia?

In this class we will examine the wikilink system and consider the growth process of general Wikipedia articles covering specific aspects of a topic. Over time, an article like Solar power may have a subsection like Solar power in the United States which grows enough to be its own article, and part of a network of similar topics.


 * Assignment - Starting June 2, I will be reviewing anything anyone has done on Wikipedia and review it in the next class.

Tuesday June 16 - Mediating controversy
Since multiple people share any given Wikipedia article the editors must mediate differences in view and present the most balanced perspective. We examine some dispute resolution processes in this class and check out some live discussions happening in popular topics.


 * Assignment - By this time everyone should have added something to a Wikipedia article. I will try to arrange for Wikipedians to look at and comment on what everyone has done by this time. Please follow up with any volunteer who has reviewed and commented on what you have done.

Tuesday June 23 - Measuring impact
In this class we will begin to reflect upon the publishing impact of what we have done in the class. I will present some readership numbers from whatever topics anyone has chosen to edit.


 * Assignment - Post to the class mailing list about potential next steps.