Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Hunter College, CUNY/Critical and feminist methodologies - Editing Wikipedia (Fall 2019)
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- Course name
- Critical and feminist methodologies - Editing Wikipedia
- Institution
- Hunter College, CUNY
- Instructor
- Erin Siodmak
- Wikipedia Expert
- Shalor (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Women and Gender Studies
- Course dates
- 2019-08-28 00:00:00 UTC – 2019-12-20 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 25
This course will cover critical and feminist approaches to research and epistemology. We will begin by asking what makes research feminist and ethical (or not), how to apply theoretical concerns to field research, and what a feminist citation practice is. And scholars of Women and Gender Studies, students have much to offer Wikipedia, both by filling information gaps and by engaging in debates about what makes something a NPOV. Students will also gain experience doing literature reviews, understanding plagiarism, conducting collaborative work, and creating new media content.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
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- Saturday, 31 August 2019
- Assignment - Introduction to the Wikipedia assignment
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
- Assignment - Get started on 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.)
- Assignment - Wikipedia assignment blog
Begin a blog about your experiences (post to Commons site under 'Wikipedia blog entries' and under your name) . You can use discussion questions to frame your entries, or reflect on the research and writing process. They don't need to be long, 150-250 words (less than 1 double-spaced page). Create at least one blog entry each week during the Wikipedia assignment.
And as with any assignment, please complete your assignment in Word or Google docs and then post. Don't write directly into the post editor unless you know you'll remember to save frequently.
- Milestones
This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.
Week 2
- Course meetings
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- Sunday, 1 September 2019 | Saturday, 7 September 2019
- Assignment - Exercise
- Assignment - Blog post 2
After completing the plagiarism exercise, what have you learned? How will you avoid plagiarism on Wikipedia? How might you recognize plagiarism if you come across it?
Week 3
- Course meetings
-
- Sunday, 8 September 2019 | Saturday, 14 September 2019
- Assignment - Exercise
- Assignment - Exercise
- Guide(s) for writing articles in your topic area
- Assignment - Blog post 3
What articles did you find? Post links to five different articles you would like to contribute to or create. Explain why for each article. What's missing? How could it be improved? What can you bring to the entry? Include one 'high stakes' page (i.e. one that is locked or on a controversial topic). Who are the editors? Look through the Talk page and see what the conversations have been. Sum up what you find in your blog post.
Week 4
- Course meetings
-
- Saturday, 21 September 2019
- Assignment - Exercise
- Assignment - Blog post 4
Wikipedia blog entries (link to the Commons)
Week 5
- Course meetings
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- Sunday, 22 September 2019 | Saturday, 28 September 2019
- Read
- Uma Narayan, The Project of Feminist Epistemology (1989)
- Assignment - Start drafting your contributions
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
- Assignment - Padlet #2 due
- Assignment - Everyone has started writing
Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Saturday, 5 October 2019
- Read
- Wagner et al, It's a man's Wikipedia? Assessing gender inequality
Wagner et al, It's a man's Wikipedia? Assessing gender inequality in an online encyclopedia (2015)
- Assignment - Exercise
- Assignment - Continue writing
- Assignment - Critical response #1
Post to the Commons site and to Blackboard. Do not forget to use your name to categorize all of your Commons posts!
Wikipedia has several important style, source and tone requirements: sources must generally be secondary sources; no original research, analysis or opinion of your own can be included; articles (and contributors) must maintain a neutral point of view (NPOV); tone should not be argumentative; and a range of information and, when relevant, perspectives must be included. Relatedly, Wikipedia has a notability requirement. For an article to be worthy of inclusion on the site, whom or whatever it is about must be considered notable. For a topic to be deemed notable, there need to be sources from which to draw information. Given the requirement to use secondary sources (overreliance on news articles, for example, in not a good practice and may raise a red flag), what limitations might this policy impose on historical events, individuals, movements or concepts/ideas that have not been given much attention and therefore are not included in any secondary sources from which to draw information? The NPOV policy imposes creates similar questions or challenges. Consider what 'neutral point of view' means - what counts as neutral? And what does that mean in the context of feminist epistemology (Narayan)?
- Assignment - Blog post 5
What has it been like writing for Wikipedia? How is it different from or similar to other types of writing you've done? Discuss some of the unique challenges that make writing for Wikipedia using a 'neutral point of view' different from other types of writing.
Wikipedia blog entries (link to the Commons)
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Sunday, 6 October 2019 | Saturday, 12 October 2019 | Wednesday, 9 October 2019
- How to give your peers feedback
Please leave your peer reviews on the User Talk Page for your colleagues who you were assigned to review. Be sure to contact the person you're reviewing for if you are unsure where they have been doing their editing. Check the article history and/or talk page, and also their sandbox to see what they've been working on.
- Assignment - Peer review ONE article
- Read
- 'Ignore all rules: A beginner's guide'
- Assignment - Blog post 6
Wikipedia blog entries (link to the Commons)
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Saturday, 19 October 2019
- Assignment - Peer review a 2nd article
Week 9
- Course meetings
-
- Sunday, 20 October 2019 | Saturday, 26 October 2019
- Assignment - Respond to your peer reviews
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.
- Assignment - Continue improving your article
Exercise
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. You can continue working in your Sandbox to create any additional content, or you can work live.
Consider media you can create or seek out that could improve your articles (or any others you were interested in).
- Assignment - Padlet #3
- Assignment - Blog post 7
Wikipedia blog entries (link to the Commons)
Week 10
- Course meetings
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- Saturday, 2 November 2019
- Milestones
Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
- Assignment - Polish your work
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!
- Assignment - Begin moving your work to Wikipedia
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the "mainspace."
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13
Week 11
- Course meetings
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- Sunday, 3 November 2019 | Saturday, 9 November 2019
- Assignment - Final article
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!
- Assignment - Blog post 8
Post at least three ideas for original media content or of things you have found that could be added to Wikipedia. Include any reservations you have re: licensing or public domain.
Week 12
- Course meetings
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- Saturday, 16 November 2019
- Assignment - New media contributions
Add your images, tables, etc to Wikipedia.
- Assignment - Reflective essay
- Milestones
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.