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Media information cognition

The School of Media Information & Cognition explores the boundaries and crossing of boundaries between Information, the vehicles that transmit it - Media, and the faculties by which we absorb, digest, or reject it.

Department of Referentiality and Organization
Increasing International Online Communication Efficacy From Wikiversity Jump to: navigation, search

Online communications via text e-mail and instant messaging can bring a sense of anonymity to the people engaged in the communication. This perception is not necessarily borne out during the exchange as there are many clues to a persons background and status to be found in their spelling, their choice of individual words, their grammar and their prosaic style. Fortunately, there are some online tools that are readily available to help level the communication playing field.

Contents [hide]

* 1 Languages- Common Tongues and Specialized Vocabularies * 2 Stereotype Threat Concerns * 3 The Usefulness of Embedded Dictionaries and Web Page Dictionary Resources * 4 The Usefulness of Web Based Thesauruses * 5 Using The Open Source Dictionary and Wordnick * 6 Using Specialized Scientific Vocabulary * 7 Using Google Translator * 8 Places for Teachers to use These Communication Tools * 9 References

Languages- Common Tongues and Specialized Vocabularies: [edit]

Because I reside in America, I am used to using English as my common tongue. Personally I recognize that English is not homogeneous in its usage across the world. It is also not homogeneous in America nor in my region of the southwestern portion of the country and not in my state of California and not in my city of San Diego. None the less, I can discern things in my own communication which may give anyone communicating with me a clue as to who and where I am just by my use of this common tongue.Because I use a relatively refined vocabulary and write with a fair amount of clarity, someone communicating with me would find it easy to assume that I am well educated. If my communication is of a formal business nature they may have a hard time gaining more insight into anything more about me including my nationality, my race, and even my gender. If I am using a user name online it can hide or reveal things about me depending on how I craft it. I am comfortable in my communication abilities and I also feel that I am a fair judge of other people's communication skill. In addition to common speech forms I also have some knowledge of several specialized vocabularies. My background in general science and biology allow me to understand and exchange information in these subject areas that would be less comprehensible to others who have little background in these areas. I also have some background with several foreign languages but I do not have enough mastery over them to feel comfortable on my own with any extensive communications with anyone who is fluent in those languages.

Stereo Type Threat Concerns:

A stereotype threat is faced by someone when anything they do or say makes someone else and perhaps even themselves be likely to characterize them as being a typical example of the stereotype.When the stereotype is a negative one, it can be self threatening enough that it can be disruptive to the efforts of the effected person just by the existence of this threat alone. African American students have historically labored under this condition. "Whenever they perform an explicitly scholastic or intellectual task, they face the threat of confirming being judged by a negative societal stereotype- a suspicion- about their race's intellectual ability and competence." (Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans, Steele & Aronson 1995). In regards to online communications, this threat can have a dampening effect upon the participation of African Americans and other potential groups who would be negatively stereotyped. Even though written communications via e-mail or instant text messages should carry some anonymity, the threat could stop their participation before they even begin. Hopefully if they know that there resources available in real time for them to use while communicating online, they will be less likely to fall prey to the stereotype threat.

The Usefulness of Embedded Dictionaries and Web Page Dictionary Resources

To be honest, my spelling is atrocious (ha ha I actually spelled that right the first time by some miracle). I tend to be phonetic when I attempt to write out the words I am thinking about. I am quite grateful for embedded dictionaries in most text programs that are on the computer and in email and other online communication programs. I also have an online dictionary bookmarked and in those times when I am using a simple text program without an embedded dictionary or those times when I need to hand write something, my browser is usually opened to the online dictionary for quick reference. My dictionary of choice for this is: http://www.merriam-webster.com They have a nice search bar that works with those of us who can get close to the spelling but not hit the mark and they have an alphabetized listing for those who are further from getting the right spelling.

The Usefulness of Web Based Thesauruses

So after you have the spelling of the word you want to use and you successfully use it in your communications, you may find that you are worried about being redundant. A good thing repeated the same way can be too much of a good thing. This is where the online thesaurus comes in handy. For example, if I am talking about a boat, I don't want to sink my link by using that appellation over and over, so I click on the tab I have open to: http://thesaurus.reference.com. I type in boat in their search bar and here is what I get;

"Main Entry: 	boat Part of Speech: 	noun Definition: 	vehicle for water travel Synonyms: 	ark, barge, bark, bateau, bottom, bucket, canoe, catamaran, craft, dinghy, dory, gondola, hulk, ketch, launch, lifeboat, pinnace, raft, sailboat, schooner, scow, ship, skiff, sloop, steamboat, tub, yacht Notes: 	a boat is a vessel that can be hauled aboard a ship, according to the Navy, with a ship being somewhat larger."

This information gives me lots of ways to call a boat by any other name, though it will not necessarily be as sweet. It keeps you afloat on the sea of communication and not foundering on the rocks of redundancy.

Using The Open Source Dictionary and Wordnick

This is all well and good if someone is just needing to communicate one way. But when an online exchange is more instantaneous, you may need an additional resource or two at your disposal. Fortunately you can have multiple tabs and full browser pages open on most modern computers. If someone you were communicating with was to throw the term "carbolicious" at you, you might have nary a clue as to it's meaning and your online dictionary may not have it either. there are several places though where this term may be found. One is: http://www3.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary They have alphabetized listings and a search bar as well so just type in the term in the search bar and you have improved your chances of knowing what the other person is talking about. Another good site for this type of communication impediment is: http://www.wordnik.com They also have listings of unusual words and phrases. If neither the traditional resources or these alternate resources have this information the I suggest calling out your online communication partner by asking did you just make that up or something?

Using Specialized Scientific Vocabulary

I advise caution when you encounter the need to use specialized vocabulary or encounter it being used by someone else. Scientific vocabulary can be especially tricky. Terms such as carrying capacity have nothing to do with weight in the scientific discipline of Ecology. The term is used when describing what amount of a certain type of living organism a particular ecosystem can sustain. It would be difficult to anticipate all the potentials for miscommunication with specialized vocabularies and just smarter to admit that you do not know everything instead.

Using Google Translator

Venturing you online communications into the realm of internationalism can be daunting. Not only do you not share a language with many of the people across the world, you also may lack an understanding of their cultural norms. The way to go when you encounter someone from a foreign country online who does not speak your language is to proceed cautiously and respectfully. It is not generally too hard to establish names and country affiliations but after that you may be at a loss as to how to proceed. If the other person speaks and writes in one of a few of the most common languages, I suggest using: http://translate.google.com This is not a perfect translator so expect that there may be snags to your communication, but overall it is a good way to have conversations longer than the equivalent of "Me Tarzan, You Jane".

Places for Teachers to use These Communication Tools

I have found several teacher's resource web sites that have chat enabled that could be a good place to try out theese tools. they are: http://teachers.net/mentors and: http://www.theteacherscorner.net/forums Good luck with the chatting and be careful of those specialized vocabularies and foreign tongues. [edit]

[Press edit (above) to contribute here]

References

"Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans" in the Journal of Personality and Psychology, 1995. Vol. 69, No. 5 by: Claude M. Steele & Joshua Aronson

"The Language of Science, The Language of Students" Heldref Publications 2005 by: Edyth Young

title: Media information cognition


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Wikiversity talk:Adding content

Wikiversity needs an introduction similar to Wikipedia's introduction. --JWSchmidt 21:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Any ideas for a name. Should we stick with "Introduction"? I was thinking "Pre-school", or "Your first lesson". How about the page format. I could copy over the same style as wikipedias and maybe change the colors, but we probably want to form our own identity here. - Trevor MacInnis 21:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * With a total lack of originality Wikiversity now has Introduction. Feel free to edit so as to "form our own identity here". --JWSchmidt 14:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Should you add it here, or on another Wikimedia project?
I added some text to try and clear things up, and now conflicting comments have been added. It would be good to resolve this... Personally I lean toward demarcating things as clearly as possible, but the important thing is that Wikiversity policy is made clear.

See:
 * Wikiversity project proposal - There may be some overlapping, but each project will maintain its own focus.

and also the discussions at: --Singkong2005 08:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Colloquium/archives/August 2006
 * Colloquium/archives/August 2006

research and intellectual property
I've just found wikiversity, having been a contributor to wikipedia for the last 9 months or so. It interests me that this might be considered an appropriate forum for publication of original research, as alluded to elsewhere in wikiversity. While it makes sense to have a place to post original research (as wikibooks and wikipedia are inappropriate fora for this), I'm wondering how the processes of peer review and intellectual property would work when most contributors are at least semi-anonymous. Any comments? Mattopaedia 10:49, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The plan is for there to be community discussion of these issues at the multilingual Wikiversity hub. I think that the main issue for peer review of original research at Wikiversity is if we need to create a new formal peer review system or if we can rely on "traditional" informal wiki-style peer review. There are some initial ideas for formal peer review at Review board. As for "intellectual property", under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) it is possible to trace content back to the content creators. If Wikiversity adopted a system for protecting pages then it would be simple for authors to document the fact that they produced an idea. Anyone wishing to link an idea published at Wikiversity to their "real world identitity" will be able to do so if they have a confirmed email address associated with their Wikiversity user page. --JWSchmidt 15:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Further note on adding content here or on other wikimedia projects
This was moved from the content page - I attempted to paraphrase it there but am copying it here for reference Cormaggio 09:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity does not duplicate other Wikimedia projects. If you wish to add material that's suitable for a textbook, it's best to add it at Wikibooks; if it's suitable for an encyclopedia, it's best to add it at Wikipedia. This avoids duplication of effort.

 * Editor's note: The above is possibly incorrect.  Material added at other Wikimedia Projects are subject to easy deletion by the communities there if they find the material substandard for their project's purpose.  If you have any doubt that the material is suitable for other projects it is best to add it here.  That way if someone chooses to move it elsewhere, and the receiving community deletes it, there is a local record to make it easy to recover.  It is possible that materials that are useful in both places will be optimized or specialized for those specific projects.  In which case we want your lesson plans to be pointing at useful learning materials here rather than possibly inappropriate specialized materials on another project site.  Mirwin 04:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki editing tutorial
I'm getting a "404 Not Found" for: Wiki editing tutorial (page bottom). Might be me, I've had connection trouble but not usually showing a 404. TheresaWilson 12:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't access it either, and get a 404 when I try the url with a www. I've left a note on Tawker's Wikipedia usertalk page. Cormaggio talk 14:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you need the content urgently here you can access some old pages. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 17:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No, didn't need it, just reporting a broken link. :-) TheresaWilson 17:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. Let's see after the reply above if we need to substitute it or just remove it. See you around, Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 17:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Makes the point in the previous thread though. What a coincidence over two years. TheresaWilson 19:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Difficulty understanding when/how to add new course
I'm working on a course "Research Methods" for Master students. My plan is to complete this in spring 2015. It'll be run (as a beta test) Feb-Apr 2015 for the first time and then officially between May and September 2015. At the end of that term I'd like to move the course to an official Wikiversity location if that is wanted. Currently it is in my personal space. I have no problem leaving it there either but I thought it would look better elsewhere. There is substantial YouTube, animation and lecture content available off-site so not all the resources are housed within Wiki(s). Is that a problem? Cheers from Berlin & thanks.--Birkenkrahe (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

something like |Wikipedia:Large language models| for this wiki?
Does or will this wiki have policy/guidelines covering these sorts of ideas: w:Wikipedia:Large language models ? Does the same Large language models effectively apply here? Is it good enough? either way, bless up. Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 03:04, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

 * I presume you are asking about Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Large language models. Yes, there seems to be consensus that those guidelines apply here. I personally wouldn't call it LLM, however. AI-generated content or AI-assisted editing would seem to be more common terminology among those who use these tools. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Wikiversity talk:Adding content


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User talk:Rpissardini~enwikiversity

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The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

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User talk:Larrylai~enwikiversity

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Larrylai. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Larrylai~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:42, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
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User talk:Thanhvx~enwikiversity

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Thanhvx. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Thanhvx~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

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Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 00:05, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

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Hitler's Germany

Part of the Department of European History.

There are several discussion topics that still have yet to be addressed. Please don't sign up unless you plan on contributing to the discussion. My email address is under my user page if anyone needs to contact me. --Kfitton 8:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Introduction to Hitler's Germany
Hitler's Germany, or from here on out referred to as 'The Third Reich', is a course that will familiarize the student with key themes in the current historical literature involving the subject. The course breaks down to several weeks of discussion held on the main page and a paper that each student will complete on a topic of their choosing, which will then be critiqued by the class for its merit and historical content. The student taking this class will hopefully walk away with a greater understanding of the time and exposure to an active academic environment that requires scholarly research. The instructor has taken a class exactly on this subject and will attempt to mold many of those ideas into this class, so students will be prepared to take on university level material should the opportunity arise. It should be noted that subject material in this class will be of a frank and sometimes grotesque manner, so if the student is not capable of maintaining a professional demeanor and historical objectivism, it is suggested that they not sign up for this class. This is intended to be roughly a '300' or '3rd year' or 'junior' level college class.

Suggested Reading for this Course
While using online resources are encouraged, it is suggested to pick up the following books for cheap on Amazon.com or any other used book seller. These are books from people respected in the field of study on The Third Reich.

 * The Nazi Dictatorship by Ian Kershaw, 4th ed.
 * Atlas of Nazi Germany by Michael Freeman, 2nd ed.
 * The Nazi Revolution by Allan Mitchell, 4th ed. Highly recommended!
 * Weimar and Nazi Germany by Panikos Panayi.
 * Nazi Culture by George Mosse. Highly recommended!
 * Inside Hitler's Germany by Benjamin Sax and Deiter Kuntz. Highly recommended!
 * A History of Nazi Germany by Joseph W. Bendersky, 2nd ed.

During the course, the instructor will be referencing these books, and while not necessary to have it would make for a much greater class environment and overall understanding of the topic.

Class Roster
Now open for signups - click on the edit and add your user here if you wish to enroll. Also, if you have in your possession, any of the suggested reading texts, please list the author(s) after your user so that the instructor can tailor discussions toward those texts.

User:Mevan have read mein kampf and have watched hitler documentaries of the bbc and downfall and rise of evil Yo Vivire The Hitler Myth by Ian Kershaw

Blackbrunettes

waronide chezzydoh

Bartdutch

PaddyC

Downey

Domiproud

Alfmaster

--Bruno Moreschi 14:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Alijohnson

Noiz

Think outside the box

guglicello

HistoryBuff

tucker529

Feather - am getting the Ian Kershaw book

Nuno Santana

Wolsztyniak - have read "On Hitler's Mountain" by Irmgard A. Hunt

subatai_baadur

Somethinggood

memzy

Krishna Tadepalli - I have "Mein Kampf" by Hitler himself and "What Hitler knew" by Zachary Shore both in pdf formats.

dangell

Alyssa

stopsignnamedcat

Sean gorter

Alexandrianphilosopher

Melissa Officinalis

Joe1973

Docta Trey

Week Schedule

 * Week 1 - What Causes a Facist Dictatorship? Post-WWI through Weimar Germany
 * Week 2 - Structure of the National Socialist Party, Political and Social Repercussions
 * Week 3 - Early forays into German Politics, German Political Spectrum
 * Week 4 - NSDAP gains control of the country, The Nazi State
 * Week 5 - Horrors and Failures of The Third Reich
 * Week 6 - Discussion for Final Paper
 * Week 7 - Critique of Final Papers and Closing Comments

Assignments Due
''Keep in mind, assignments will NOT be collected, except for Week 6-7. All work is a suggestion to students in order for them to be prepared for the week topics.''
 * Pre-Week 1 - Students enrolling should start by looking up various governmental systems and taking notes in preparation for discussion. In particular: Fascism, Communism, Democracy, Totalitarianism, and Monarchism/Oligarchy.
 * Week 1 - Students should compare the differences between Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, particulary in the notion of the Fuhrerprinzip. Suggested reading:Rise of Dictatorships
 * Week 2 - It was often said that Nazi support was, "a mile wide and an inch deep". Students should look into why the National Socialists gained such widespread appeal amongst certain sections of society.  This is prep work for week 2 discussion.
 * Week 3 - Taking information from the Week 3 Discussion, students should map out political groups and how these groups played into Hitler/Hindenburg's control of the government. Stress should be placed upon the Enabling Bill (also known as the Reichstag Fire Decree), that will be discussed in Week 4.  Suggested reading Reichstag_fire
 * Week 4 - The Volksgemeinschaft or People's Community was a core idea behind Nazi control of the state. Students should look more into a specific area (ie: education, economics, social groups, labor, etc) for examples of National Socialist Gleichschaltung in possible preparation for the final paper.
 * Week 5 - Is the Holocaust a singular event or just another genocide on an industrial scale? Considering this question is prep work for the discussion during Week 5.
 * Week 6 - Students will have a topic and potential thesis statement ready for discussion Week 6.
 * Week 7 - Final papers will be presented for class critique, papers should have a refined thesis as per commentary during Week 6, should be in the area of 2-5 pages (due to time constraints) with all proper historical writing procedures followed.

Historian's Struggle

 * Is the event known as The Third Reich (1933-1945) something unique in history? Adding to that, is The Third Reich a product of structuralism (ie: societal factors) or intentionalism (Hitler's force alone)?
 * Case for Structuralism - The system of support that the Nazi party had teamed together with widespread disenfranchisement felt by those social groups that were hit hard by the end of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles (middle class, businesses, military, nationalists).
 * Case for Intentionalism - The apparent strength of Hitler's ability to lead the German people. More often than not this was actually allowing differing groups to bicker over what Hitler's actual will was, so then it was necessary for Hitler to make a judgment, thus ensuring his control over the system.

Typically this argument tends to center around whether Hitler was a strong or weak leader...those in the strong camp tend towards Intentionalism while the latter tend to support the idea of Structuralism. Does the issue of Hitler make this a case completely unique from all other examples of fascism or does each instance require a 'leader' such as Mussolini or Franco, as in the cases of Italy and Spain respectively? Based upon the literature, and which historian you tend to follow, it would seem that the overall comparision to other fascists states is remarkably similar except for one area; the horrific eugenics/racial policies that the Nazis carried out.

Historical Objectivism

 * Being objective in history is a cornerstone of the profession, however what does this have to do with The Third Reich? Simple, it becomes a fundamental necessity when trying to separate historical fact from the crushing morality surrounding the atrocities committed.  So the historian must learn that while reprehensible, the facts surrounding the time are what need to be evaluated, not judgments made based upon our opinions.  Does this make historians uncaring monsters?  Of course not, but in order to fairly evaluate the social, political, and economic factors that make an occurrence like this happen, historians have to put their opinions aside.  Often, as can be seen even in professional historiographies, bias and personal opinions can sneak in and taint work done in honest scholarship.  While reading texts on the subject, historians should be actively looking for bias in any particular instance and should adjust accordingly.

Volksgemeinschaft

 * The Volksgemeinschaft (VGS) is a German word for a uniquely German ideal - the people's community. As explained higher up in this class, the thing to keep in mind is that the VGS had a very strict definition of who was considered valid and acceptable.  This is the area where Aryan racial policy finds a societal defense, after all, only an Aryan can defend the Fatherland against the unstable elements, right?

Gleichschaltung

 * Also known as the co-ordination of party and state, this term compasses all of the actions by the Nazi party/state with the goal of creating the VGS in mind. Where VGS is the ideal, Gleichschaltung is the execution and the lengths to which the Nazi party will go, eventually leads to the final solution.  It should be noted as a point of interest, that upon gaining control of the state, one of the first targets for gleichschaltung were education and the youth of Germany.  The Hitler Youth would prove to be some of the most fanatical and loyal units throughout the whole Reich period.

Necessary Terms

 * Reichswehr - aka the German Army, Weimar period
 * Wehrmacht - the German Armed Forces, Third Reich
 * BlitzKrieg - lightning war, quick assaults with emphasis on mobility
 * Einsatzgruppen - security groups charged with clearing occupied zones (ie: exterminiation)
 * Fuhrerprinzip - Leadership focused on one charismatic leader at the top
 * Kraft durch Freude (KdF) - the 'Strength through Joy' Nazi recreational organization
 * Kristallnacht - 'Night of Broken Glass', first major pogrom against Jews, 9-12 November 1938
 * Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Worker's Party) - NSDAP, also known as the Nazi party
 * Lebensraum - Living space, the needed expansion into eastern Europe as seen as necessary by Hitler
 * Reichstag - German parliment, a rubber stamp during Nazi rule
 * Schutzstaffel - aka the SS, German Special Forces, included police/political/military units, along with 'Death's Head' exterminiation camp guards
 * Sturmabteilung - Stormtroopers, original political guards and terror troops from Nazi party, importance declines after Nazis take control of the state

People to Know

 * Martin Bormann- Head of the Party, private secretary to Hitler
 * Hans Frank - Governor-General of occupied Poland
 * Joseph Goebbels - Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
 * Hermann Goering - Commander of the Luftwaffe, Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan
 * Rudolf Hess - Early secretary to Hitler, flew to Scotland on 'peace mission'
 * Heinrich Himmler - Chief of German Police and SS, arguably the second most powerful man in the Reich
 * Paul von Hindenburg - Last president of Weimar Germany, national hero in WWI, office is taken over upon his death and seen as the fall of democracy in Germany
 * Franz von Papen - Former chancellor under Weimar Germany, negotiates putting Hitler into the chancellorship
 * Erwin Rommel - Nazi General, famous tactician, commander in North Africa and Normandy, monikered "The Desert Fox"
 * Albert Speer - Minister of Armaments and Munitions, also a favorite of Hitler for his architectural work
 * Karl Dönitz - German Naval Officer, head of the Kriegsmarine, and eventual successor to Hitler after Hitler's suicide in 1945

Discussion Record
Discussions will take place each week, with a topic opening on Sunday and discussion being closed on Saturday. Students will add their response underneath the question, please make statements fruitful and historically valid. At the end of the class, the last set of discussions will be on critique of student papers. More instructions will follow with each week.

 * Week 1 - This week's discussion will surround the issues involved in turning a somewhat modern democracy into a fascist dictatorship. What was the combination of factors during this time that allowed fascism to thrive instead of democracy/monarchism in places like Germany, Italy, Spain?

The single biggest factor in turning Germany from a somewhat modern democracy into a fascist state is the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty took from Germany valuable land, forces them to pay lots of money, and limited the German military to 100,000 men, putting the vast majority of Germanys fighting men out of a job.

The economic impact of this sent Germany into a major depression, which helped fuel the already strong force of communism. The military limitations lead to the rise of the Freikorps who spent their time fighting the communists. Together these two factions polarized Germany, and near anarchy ensued in Germany. With the right fighting the left, and even different factions of the left fighting the left. Fascism arises as a reaction to communism, and promised to restore Germany to its former glory. Also I think it is worth mentioning Germanys geographical position, surrounded on all sides and land locked. This makes war much more likely as a country would always like to have at least one friendly border.The biggest issues leading to the general rise of Fascism during the post World War I era were: Reactions to International Communism, transitions from monarchy’s to democracies, international depression, paramilitaries, and the rise of nationalism. Also of note is fascist propaganda. Fascism arose in Germany, Italy and Spain as a reaction to socialism, communism, or both. In all three countries the leftists are the first to take power from. the Monarchy’s. The new government is leftist but not communist. Both the radical left and right wing try to over throw the new government. While at the same time fighting each other. Along with the political chaos is the great depression, and lots unhappy former solders joining paramilitary organizations. Due to the wide spread paramilitary activity and former veteran sympathy for fascism the fascists were able to take power with out a majority of the population, sometimes taking a country by force. With the effective use of propaganda the fascists are able to stir up nationalistic sentiment, all three countries were declining empires, and their people wanted to see a restoration of the empire. -JDowney

Alright, looks like we have a discussion on our hands! Just for notice, because of the mix up..I'm giving an extra week to this first topic so that people can find the link if needed. Anyway.. I think you have a good start, however there are a few holes I would like for you to clear up with me. First, while the treaty is a huge portion of the unrest taking place in Weimar Germany, the government was making their payments with help of loans from the west. It wasn't until the great depression, that the loans dried up and put Germany on the spot - when the hyperinflation really takes off. Second, at that time, Germany was not landlocked; they did have some ports on the north coast near Denmark..however you are correct in that they were surrounded by a lot of countries that didn't really like them (excepting austria and what we now know as the Checz Republic). Your assessment of the military is accurate. Political polarization was not exactly left vs right however, as we will be covering later, the German political spectrum consisted mainly of (from left to right): KPD (communists), SPD (socialists), zentrum (Catholic center party), nationalists (we would call them neo-conservatives in today's climate), and NSDAP (nazis). During Weimar, the SPD was the main force in the government and everything was swinging around that axis. The working classes either supported the SPD or joined the KPD, while business interests and nationalists joined the right leaning parties. The zentrum (center) party was mostly concerned about religious issues and tried to ride the fence in order to protect those religious freedoms. However, once the depression breaks out, political tensions start to spike and you see the existence of the NSDAP take shape. This dynamic and agressive, nationalistic group that believes that communists and jews have forced Germany into this position of weakness and that getting rid of the unstable elements in society will make Germany better off in the long run. The vast majority of supporters in the early period are war veterans and middle class (shopkeepers, burecrats, etc) people that are tired of seeing 'their' country wasting away. Also keep in mind that most of the business interests and the military tended to side with the nationalist parties (of which Paul von Hindenburg was a part of). This is the climate where the paramilitary groups start to thrive as a means for out of work men to do something they consider meaningful. Street wars would start to take place and almost every political group had to have some sort of bodyguards around in order to stop harassment from other factions. It should be noted that so far in the history of time, the two greatest propagandists were the NSDAP and the Communist Party. Taking a look at the posters of the time, these two groups did fantastic work when it came to shifting opinions, even to the point of the Nazis just using a black poster with Hitler's name and face on it - nothing else. It was the poster that said everything and nothing, something quite powerful during it's time. --Kfitton 15:43, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

So then the factors turning Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship are: The Treaty of Versailles, class warfare and the rise of international communism, widespread paramilitary groups, the war guilt clause, and a general propensity towards a strong national government and the command economy. Another factor that I’m unsure of is the role of Catholicism, both in Germany and in other fascist regimes. The only proof that this is a factor is in that; first Catholicism is still fairly powerful in all 3 countries. It’s a political issue in all three countries; Catholicism is known to have been sympathetic to fascism. It seems the churches like the capitalists saw fascism as a better alternative to communism, and something they could control. Maybe it is better to say that the declining power of the Catholic Church is a factor in the rise of fascism and communism. For its declining influence among the masses of poor leads to the rise of communism not just in Germany but also in the entire world. Communism is usually atheistic and hence a danger to the church. The church seeing that its power is fading fast finds an ally in the fascists. They might have seen the fascists as a modern evolution of the monarchies, which they ruled as a sort of Theocratic-Oligarchy over the kings of Europe for centauries. JDowney

For the most part, you're correct...the Catholic center party (Zentrum) tended to play the fence by backing whoever was in power as long as they didn't mess with religious rights. They tended to look at the long term survival instead of 'wedge' issues of the day. During Weimar, they backed the SPD who was in control at the time...as the SPD lost power to the Nazis, the Zentrum started to shift in order to try and save their institutions from the chop. --Kfitton 23:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

In researching it occurred to me that modern Russia shares many of the same conditions as the prefascist states of pre-WWII europe. I found a few websites that support this theory, what do you think? Downey 05:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, economically there are some similarities..but I'm not seeing the global preconditions nor the massive internal political divisions that existed in Germany during the Weimar period. I could be wrong as Russian history is not one of my areas of study, but without firm evidence I couldn't support a hypothesis that modern Russia is like Weimar Germany. --Kfitton 11:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Week 2 - This week the discussion is surrounded by the curiosity of why the Nazi party was so effective, what is it about the inherit structures of the party that allows such a well-coordinated response to the internal pressures of politics and the external pressures of communism and democracy?

There are I'm sure many reasons why the Nazis were so effective, despite initially weak support at the polls. First there is the romantic nationalism and the Völkisch movement. The German people were simply put, depressed. The Volkisch movement gives them some pride in the selves back and gives them some other people to blame their plight upon. Second is the structure of the party which was much like a military hierarchy. I’m not sure if this is new for a political organization. However in Germany it allows for some unique things to happen, best known being the holocaust. Like a military hierarchy everyone answers to someone higher up and follows any orders given to them from higher ups. Very important to their ability to provide a well coordinated response to internal political pressure and the external pressure of communism and democracy is that an inferior should have no guilt for following orders given by a superior. Perhaps it could be said that the Nazis mastered the art of passing the buck, which allowed ordinary people to do extraordinary and sometime terrible things with out the misgivings and guilt that normally occurs. That many party members were ex-military/current paramilitary men surely encouraged this quasi-military political structure and helped it succeed so well. Downey 01:05, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

An accurate analysis..the only part you're missing is the exceptional use of propaganda. Part of the structure of the Nazi party was a key link to producing propaganda that the public couldn't get enough of. It said everything and nothing all in the same stroke...and the disenfranchised seized upon anyone willing to be a leader in the storm. --Kfitton 23:25, 15 September 2006

What was it about the Nazi propaganda that was so powerful? Downey 07:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

In the history of the world, the two best propagandists were probably the Nazis and the Soviets. The range and scope to which they were willing to go in order to produce materials to influence also borders on the deranged/obsessive. This will explain a bit more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#Nazi_Germany  --Kfitton 14:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

In one sense, there was nothing unusual about the Nazi regime. it was the same reversion to barbarism, muderousness, mass deception and mass barbarism which has occurred throught human history. However what made it different was that it was the only case of mass concerted genocide to occur towards an entire group within a national society (as opposed to expulsion from within, or of genocide per se, but towards foreign indigenous peoples) in at least the last 150 years of modern European history. --Sm8900 22:06, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well..just thinking off the top of my head, there is the Armenian genocide, the event in Cambodia, and the ethnic killing during Kosovo and the breakdown of Yugoslavia. Expanding further, there is the current events taking place in Africa. So taking that into account, I don't think I would have made the same claim that you have proposed, additionally, I'm a bit perplexed as your paragraph doesn't really make sense in this portion of the discussion - the effectiveness of the Nazi party. --Kfitton 00:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Practically it was a combination of harnassing the German people (Gleichschaltung) together with an efficient propoganda machine. Also contributing factors are, as shown by other authors, the after effects of the treaty of Versailles, adverse economic situation. These added factors breed extremism as shown throughout history and even in our world todate. Bart 21:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

One thing that hasn't been touched on deeply is the role of the brownshirts. This paramilitary arm of a political party is quite divorced from modern democratic politics, where politics is seen as an intellectual rather then a physcial sport. I'm wondering if this might not have had impact on how citizens percieved the Nazi Party. Historybuff 03:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The brownshirts, also known as the SA (Sturmabeiltung or Stormtroopers), originally were the bodyguards for important members and ran security for all the meetings. The closer time got to Hitler taking power, the SA turned into a terrorizing force. They would actively search out rival meetings, newspapers, and members to weaken the other political and social groups. There has to be a reminder that during this time in Germany there is economic turmoil, vast unemployment, and political pressure. Being a member of a political party was also being part of a social group. So to Germans at the time - it doesn't seem so strange that the Nazis have the SA as part of their organization, after all most of the other groups had similar (albeit usually less organized) 'soldiers' as well. --Kfitton 07:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Week 3 - Hitler's earlier attempts to gain control of the government are much more radical than the successful political one later on. Explain to me how the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Mein Kampf, and the eventual political rise of the Nazis are all related?  As part of that, explain how Hitler used the Nationalist factions and Hindenburg to wean down the SPD during Weimar.

 * Week 4 - Explain the pattern of legalized revolution that the Nazi party adopts as the method of gaining control of the government. Once control was established, the Nazi party starts to assimilate all forms of social interaction and government institutions, why is it that there is a dual structure involved (both the party AND the state)?  Are there any particular cases of groups susceptiable or resistant to this movement?

 * Week 5 - Make an argument as to whether or not the Holocaust was a singular event or just another genocide. If the argument is made for being a singular event, then describe what was inherit to the Nazi system that allowed such an event to occur.  If not, then describe how it relates to other genocides throughout the world.  Regardless of case, does the Holocaust as an event change the nature of the Nazi regime and how does that change history?

title: Hitler's Germany


text:
The Great War and Versailles

Course Opening
The course has begun, and the first assignment has been posted. Please see below.

Course Outline
Classes will take place once a week to once every two weeks. Since the Great War has such a rich history, the focus will be placed on military history, though students are encouraged to branch out based upon their own interest. The following syllabus is open to modification:

 * Europe in 1914 / The Outbreak of War Assignment One, Lecture One
 * 1914: The Opening Campaigns / 1915: The War Continues
 * 1916: The War of Attrition / The United States Enters the War
 * 1917: The Year of Crisis / 1918: The Final Campaigns
 * Reflecting on the Experience of the War / 1919: The Peace Settlement

Currently proposed course study tasks or essay topics
(Perceived as synergistic learning while improving Wikiversity's free resources) Ideas or proposed study tasks or essay topics.

Recommended Text

 * The First World War by Michael Howard (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 0192804456: A short introduction to the topic. I will be drawing my lectures from it heavily.

Additional Books
See the Further Readings List for books relating to topics you may wish to study in more detail.

More on Wikibooks
Wikibooks already has some brief information on the Great War.
 * World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (1914 - 1920)
 * Causes and course of the First World War
 * Effects of the First World War

Class List

 * Professor:
 * Christopher Polizano
 * Students:
 * Alex beta 16:14, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Abc123 06:55, Jun 29, 2005 (UTC)
 * BarnacleKB 20:25, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Muhgcee 4 July 2005 02:12 (UTC)
 * Master Thief Garrett 5 July 2005 04:20 (UTC)
 * Sarken 15:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * JBishop 1 Aug 2005 14:43 (UTC)
 * Lazyquasar 19:52, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
 * MateoP 05:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Pravin L Singh 21 February 2006
 * PaddyC 22:52, 03 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ObubbledO 19:35, 25 February 2009

title: The Great War and Versailles


text: User talk:Suhema

title: User talk:Suhema


text:
User talk:Charm87~enwikiversity

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Charm87. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Charm87~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Charm87~enwikiversity


text:
Visual Basic/Introduction

Getting to know the VB6 IDE
The VB6 IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is among the easiest and most fully featured IDEs available for any programming language. One major thing which is far easier in VB6 than most other programming IDEs is GUI design.

Feel free to explore and experiment with the IDE. Its not easy to "break" anything in it, so have at it!

Overview of the IDE

 * 1) Menu bar: This section contains a wide variety of options for customizing the IDE and modifying your program.
 * 2) Toolbox: This window contains objects you may place on a Form or UserControl.
 * 3) Object Window: This window may contain a graphical object such as a Form or UserControl.
 * 4) Graphical object: This is the object which represents what your program will look like. In this screenshot it is a Form called by the default name "Form1".
 * 5) Project toolbar: This is the place from where you navigate to different files in the project.
 * 6) Properties window: Here, you change the different properties of objects and controls.

Don't allow sloppy coding

 * 1) Click on Tools->Options
 * 2) Check "Require Variable Declaration"
 * 3) Click on the "Environment" tab
 * 4) Select the option button which says "Prompt to save changes"
 * 5) Press "OK"

Get rid of silliness
On the bottom-right of the IDE, close the "Form Layout" pane because it is pretty much useless.

Access to handy functions

 * 1) Right-click somewhere on the toolbar and click on "Customize..."
 * 2) Click on the "Commands" tab
 * 3) Under "Categories", select "Edit"
 * 4) Scroll down to about the middle of the "Commands" box until you can see "Indent", "Outdent", "Comment Block", and "Uncomment Block". Drag all of those items to your toolbar, putting them in order, right next to the "Start", "Pause", and "Stop" buttons.
 * 5) Press "Close"

You can now use these commands by selecting a block of text in your source code then hitting one of these commands to do the specified function on the whole block of code. Handy.

Changing Properties of Objects
If you click on an object on your form, or even the form itself, you gain access to the properties of that item and change them in the properties pane on the right side of the screen.

Underlined letters
When you press the [Alt] button in many programs you're shown little lines underneath certain letters of menu items. If you then press on your keyboard a letter which corresponds to one of the underlined letters then that menu item is selected.

In VB6, to get that functionality all you have to do is place an ampersand (&) before the letter you want to be underlined and functional in this way.

This functionality exists in:
 * Primary Menu items
 * Secondary menu items
 * Command buttons

Deleting a picture or icon property
If the Picture or Icon property of an object has been set, it may be un-set by going to the corresponding property and pressing the [Delete] key..

Controls & UserControls
All of the small icons on the left-hand of the screen, in the toolbox pane, represent Controls or UserControls which you can place in a program. Controls are compiled objects which reside in external OCX or DLL files. UserControls are objects inside of your project which reside in CTL files.

These objects may be a wide variety of different things, but they're usually graphical elements like TextBoxes, ListBoxes, CheckBoxes, and everything else you interact with in a graphical program. These objects may also be invisible items which provide functionality on a purely functional level like Winsock (Network connectivity), Timer (Code execution timing), MSInet (Web and FTP connectivity).

Placing controls on a form

 * 1) Left-click on the box representing the control you want in your program (Example: TextBox)
 * 2) Left-click and drag from one spot to another on "Form1", then release.
 * Most controls will appear on "Form1" as the same size as the box you laid out with your click-and-drag.
 * Some controls will remain a fixed size no matter what.
 * Some controls will snap to different intervals of length/width.

Importing extra controls
If you want to use a control which is not included in VB6's "Standard EXE" toolbox of 21 controls, you'll need to import them like this:
 * 1) Right-click somewhere in the toolbox, and select "Components"
 * 2) In that window you can select an OCX file which contains controls you can add to your form
 * If the control you're looking for isn't on the list then you can try to find it by clicking "Browse..." and finding the OCX file manually
 * Sometimes OCX files are given the extension DLL when the file is a DLL which includes OCX data inside it

Running A Program
Take a look in the menu item "Run".

You will find that:
 * Pressing "Start" in that menu, pressing the "Play" button, or pressing F5 on your keyboard will run your program
 * Pressing "Break" in that menu, pressing the "Pause" button, or pressing Ctrl+Break on your keyboard will pause your program
 * Allows you to edit your program while you're running it (AWESOME! Spoilage factor here versus every other programming IDE)
 * Pressing "End" in that menu, or pressing the "Stop" button will stop your program

Stopping A Program
When you are done testing your application, you will want to close it. There are several ways to accomplish this.
 * If at all possible you should close your application by pressing the "X" button on the top-right of the window of an application, or using the keystroke Alt+F4. This is a "clean" termination of the program.

The following options should be used only in the case that your program has stalled and you cannot close it by pressing Alt+F4 or the "X" button on the program's window. In all of these options there is a chance of causing a memory leak, which renders some space in your computer's memory unusable until the next time you reboot the computer.

 * If the VB6 IDE is still responsive: Press the "Stop" button located beside the "Play" and "Pause" buttons in the VB6 IDE.
 * If the VB6 IDE is no longer responsive: Press Ctrl+Break to Pause the program's execution.
 * If Ctrl+Break doesn't work: Try to end VB6.exe via the windows task manager.
 * If none of that works: Time to restart the computer and go fix that horrible bug in your program!

Compiling A Program
'''You must be using a full, retail copy of Visual BASIC. The Learning Edition will not compile to EXE'''

 * In the VB6 IDE, press File->Make ProjectName.exe, select a location and filename you would like your program to have and VB6 will create that EXE for you simply and very easily.

The process in which source code is converted into EXE is called "compiling", and is far more simplified in VB6 than a language like C++.

In order for your program to run on any given computer, that computer must have all of your program's "dependencies". All programs written in VB6 will require the Visual Basic 6 Runtime Library (msvbvm6.dll). Happily: Windows XP had the VB6 runtime library ever since first release, so if you make a VB6 program with no extra dependencies, it will work on Windows XP.

Prior versions of windows, however, did not come with the VB6 runtime preloaded, and will require it to be installed if it hasn't yet been installed.

If your program requires any extra DLL or OCX files in order to work, those are now dependencies of your program which you will need to supply to anyone you want to send your program to. For maximum portability it is a good idea to rely on functionality you implement in your own program. If you're lucky, you can opt for implementing the CTL source code file from an OCX into your program if the OCX is open-source and was written in VB6.

Getting into the source code
You may access source code related to any visible object in the object window, including Forms, Controls, UserControls, CommandButtons, TextBoxes, etc.

There are multiple ways to do this:
 * Right-click anywhere on a graphical object and select "View code"
 * Double-left-click on the object
 * Right-click on the object you would like to see the source code to in the Project Explorer window and select "View code"

After you do one of those you should see something like the following: Option Explicit

Private Sub Form_Load

End Sub

This is the current source code behind the object you selected. In this example, your cursor is currently between "Private Sub Form_Load" and "End Sub" because the object you double-clicked on was a "Form" and the default subroutine for the IDE to bring you to if there is nothing yet coded for that object is "Load".

You can change which subroutine associated with "Form" you want to look at by clicking somewhere inside the "Form_Load" routine, then selecting one of the options inside the combo-box on the top right of the window you're in.

Setting project properties
Search through this dialog. Learn its options. Set the values inside.
 * In the top menu click on Project » Project1 Properties

Your first VB6 program
A traditional first application in any programming language will be something which somehow displays "Hello world!". So, that's what we're going to do, but I'm gonna make it complicated for you. Start a new project, get into the source code, select all of it, and replace it with this:

Now press the "Run" button or [F5] to run the program. It will show you a message box which says something like: Hello World

title: Visual Basic/Introduction


text:
User talk:Suhas~enwikiversity

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Suhas. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Suhas~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:44, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Suhas~enwikiversity


text:
Wikiversity:Wikiversity (overview)

Wikiversity is a proposed project of the Wikimedia Foundation which would serve as a resource specifically focussed on education and learning. There would be a repository of learning resources or "teachers' materials" - activity sheets, slides, posters, etc., and lesson plans for how to incorporate these resources - as supplementary matériel to the text books developed at Wikibooks. Some project members hope it will eventually become a fully-fledged e-learning resource, but the wider community is as yet undecided on how this will be managed or whether it should exist.

History of the project
Wikiversity's concept - one of an augmentation of the text-books to aide learning from them - was initially developed by the writers on Wikibooks, and the project's proponents started small-scale attempts there, resulting in a number of example course materials with a variety of styles currently exist on Wikibooks. Examples of subjects include:

 * Cell Biology
 * Electronics
 * Bioethics
 * Ancient Greek Philosophy
 * Introduction to programming in C
 * Media literacy

See here for a more detailed history of the Wikiversity concept.

Project's identity
In August 2005, the Wikibooks community became dissatisfied with the placing of Wikiversity within Wikibooks, feeling that the creation of accessory learning materials wasn't in-line with the project's goal, and some moved to have it moved elsewhere. A Wikimedia-wide proposal was then put forward for Wikiversity to be created as an fully-fledged project, in which about 300 Wikimedians took part. This gathered a large range of opinions, with over 2/3rds of the participants in favour of going ahead with Wikiversity as a full project. Since then attempts have been made to identify a viable project identity or timeframe for moving Wikiversity forward towards a full project.

What would Wikiversity do?
As previously mentioned, Wikiversity would develop and host learning materials and processes for general educational use. These will be multi-lingual, free to all, and will be developed collaboratively by the community, which is open to anyone, worldwide, with an interest in creating or using these resources.

How would it work?
Wikiversity would work alongside the other Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. Wikipedia is already the world's biggest encyclopædia and aims to be the world's best. Large learning communities have formed in the larger projects (like English, French, German, Japanese) and these are all engaged in the production of resources which are free to be used in a variety of ways. Wikiversity would be similar, both in consisting of and being based around a community of people interested in learning, and also in working to complement Wikimedia projects, ie. develop articles for Wikipedia, books for Wikibooks, media files for Wikimedia Commons, and so on. In this sense, participants of Wikiversity would be engaged collectively in a learning process, developed according to their own needs and interests.

Further information
For further insight into the state of Wikiversity, see the Wikiversity discussion page and a workshop/presentation by Board member Florence Nibart-Devouard at the 2005 FLOSS conference in South Africa.

title: Wikiversity:Wikiversity (overview)


text:
Wikiversity talk:Wikiversity (overview)

Moved from Wikiversity (overview) introduction (Red=Jdforrester, Green=Cormaggio)

 * Have toned this down to "proposed", and slightly tweaked the wording to match and make it more easily flow.

 * Yes, but I think you've watered it down unnecessarily. It is a project (well, sub-project) of the Foundation and it will serve as a resource of learning. I thought this was meant to be a kind of "sales pitch" anyway..

 * It's a Wikiproject of a Foundation project; it's not a sub-project of the Foundation, and certainly not a project of the Foundation... yet. Yes, this is a "sales pitch", but I thought that we're meant to be selling the potential of the project, not as an already-running one (which would be bending the truth rather). By pointing out how early we are with this, we can stress how much of an influence this document's readers can have... I dunno.

How was this determined?
"Some project members hope it will eventually become a fully-fledged e-learning resource, but the wider community is as yet undecided on how this will be managed or whether it should exist."

It strikes me as bullshit but if true then the time for a fork may already be upon us. Who is the "wider community" considering that a solid two thirds of 300 votes supported the activation of the Wikiversity project six months ago? What is a "fully fledged e-learning resource?" User:lazyquasar 11:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This section needs substantial rework.
"How would it work?

Wikiversity would work alongside the other Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. Wikipedia is already the world's biggest encyclopædia and aims to be the world's best. Large learning communities have formed in the larger projects (like English, French, German, Japanese) and these are all engaged in the production of resources which are free to be used in a variety of ways. Wikiversity would be similar, both in consisting of and being based around a learning community of people interested in education, and also in working to complement Wikimedia projects for students and teachers to develop articles for Wikipedia, books for Wikibooks, media files for Wikimedia Commons, and so on. In this sense, teachers and students would be engaged collectively in a learning process, developed according to their own needs and interests."

Wikiversity as proposed intially was not biased towards existing educators and students. It was intended to be a resource created, maintained and used by people interested in self education across the internet and digitial divide.

The above panders to existing educational professionals and processes. Non of whom really benefit should Wikiversity succeed in adding a revolutionary process .... student to student information flows. The existing tightly held educational system is not necessarily going to welcome internet revolutions in their area of expertise and practice and biasing the initial Wikiversity towards this population may not provide sufficient diverse participation to succeed. 70.110.33.241 11:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

 * This paragraph isn't meant to suggest that Wikiversity is completely biased towards existing educators and students, but it will be focused on educational materials and, probably, projects. Self-education will be key to this (and it should be stressed). But I absolutely disagree that Wikiversity will not benefit existing educational professionals - what about resource-hungry teachers? What about someone looking for a collaborative space in which to encourage their students to work? We're certainly not going to make their jobs or institutions redundant, or, at least, not overnight ;-) Cormaggio @ 14:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

 * This section should be deleted. AFAIK no one really knows yet how a wikiversity will work beyond the clear fact that people can exchange, organize, validate and update information in a wiki.  Clearly educational processes can be evolved for this medium.  If you want to keep this section then you should discuss specific details with the people leading specific efforts regarding what is actually working and what is not currently yet working.  I suspect you will find nobody has adequate participation yet to cite specifics with the possible exception of MFinny, who is following a rather specific training methodology pioneered by the U.S. military and used extensively througout U.S. trade and industry .... if I understand correctly, Wikiversity for his fire school is currently a publishing platform, not yet a revolutionary means of using wiki to exchange or develop information and learning resources.  It will be instructive to see how wiki influences his fire school but I suspect it is too early to identify trends.  We may find that some traditional approaches work so well as is that in some instruction delivered at Wikiversity: the only innovation the use of public internet wikis brings is convenient cost effective worldwide participation.  The proposal sent to the Board for authorization to initialize the Wikiversity project should be concise, accurate, and generic.   Not filled with a lot of speculation or sales spin that can later be misconstrued as Board approved Wikiversity policy or intent.  Time enough to evolve specific Wikiversity policy or marketing efforts towards specific demographics after we have some participants actually prototyping effective methods under documented Wikimedia Foundation policy and approval.  User:lazyquasar 01:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I really think you are taking the idea that we are specifying exactly how Wikiversity is going to work too far. All we need to do is to put together a proposal that answers the kind of questions that people will have. Asking what Wikiversity is and how it will work are completely valid questions, and they have been asked, repeatedly. We need to answer them. But I fully agree that we should be generic, as well as accurate and concise. Cormaggio @ 07:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

title: Wikiversity talk:Wikiversity (overview)


text:
User talk:Neo139

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Neo139
 * My discussion is on English wikipedia
 * Mijn bespreking is op Engelse wikipedia
 * Ma discussion est sur le wikipedia anglais
 * Meine Diskussion ist auf englischem wikipedia
 * Η συζήτησή μου είναι στο αγγλικό wikipedia
 * La mia discussione è sul wikipedia inglese
 * Minha discussão está no wikipedia inglês
 * Мое обсуждение находится на английском wikipedia
 * Mi discusión está en wikipedia inglés

title: User talk:Neo139


text:
User:Senthryl

I'm currently on a leave of absence.

title: User:Senthryl


text:
Category:Economics

cs:Kategorie:Ekonomie de:Kategorie:Fach:Wirtschaftswissenschaften el:Κατηγορία:Οικονομία es:Categoría:Ciencias económicas fi:Luokka:Taloustiede fr:Catégorie:Économie it:Categoria:Facoltà di Economia ru:Категория:Экономика sv:Kategori:Nationalekonomi

title: Category:Economics


text: Category:Anthropology

title: Category:Anthropology


text: Category:Architecture

title: Category:Architecture


text:
Wikiversity:Thinktank

Wiki technology is relatively new. Wikiversity is an exploration of how to use the wiki user interface to promote learning. Wikiversity depends on a community of participants who are interested in the process by which Wikiversity is exploring the unknown future of wiki. If you have an idea for how to improve Wikiversity, please share your thoughts. Use this page to link to experimental Wikiversity development projects.

Wikiversity development projects

 * Wiki-based learning - Investigation of the implications of wiki technology for online learning.
 * MediaWiki Project - extensions of MediaWiki to support learning

 * (list here)

title: Wikiversity:Thinktank


text:
Portal talk:Mythology

Be sure and coordinate with the other schools in the Humanities, as well as the School of History, for a more well-rounded, in-depth approach to Mythology. Jade Knight 23:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

External Link
Hello, I have added a link to the MythiMedia research project (Bologna University, Italy) http://www.mythimedia.org/. The project explores the presence of Greek mythology in today's culture, and contains articles on art and design, cinema, comics and cartoons, music, radio and tv, and theater. The site is written entirely in English. Thanks. Wikipedia user Fallingdrapery 82.54.82.220 12:00, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

title: Portal talk:Mythology


text:
Wikiversity:Wikiversity students

"Learning is the product of the activity of learners." -John Holt

Wikiversity Scholars Wikiversity is devoted to active learners who are self-motivated explorers of the world we live in. Wikiversity does not strive to be a conventional university, but Wikiversity can trace its spirit of scholarship back to the origins of the modern university.

The word "university" is derived from the Latin “universitas”, which is short for "universitas magistrorum et scholarium", meaning roughly "community of masters and scholars". According to David C. Lindberg in his book The Beginnings of Western Science, "guild" is a good term to use to describe such a "community of masters and scholars". The idea of teachers and students banding together was part of the movement towards trades and crafts forming what came to be known as guilds.

When the first universities were formed, elementary education included language skills and basic mathematics. The entry level of university education eventually evolved into what we know as a liberal arts education. Originally, a typical age for starting participation in university education was about 14. Typical undergraduate topics were philosophy and "advanced" mathematics such as geometry. Students might typically learn astronomy and astrology according to Ptolemy. This is the level of education that is today found in American High Schools. It should be expected that as High School students mature cognitively and socially they will be able to participate in Wikiversity. Some more precocious students from pre-High School grades may also benefit from Wikiversity.

The Name
Some people object to the name "Wikiversity". It has been suggested that the name "Wikiversity" is too centered on higher education and that the main Wikimedia educational project should also include content that is for less advanced students. In the "learning as collaboration" model of wiki-assisted learning, each student must take responsibility for their education and utilization of available online resources.

It is not clear that the youngest students can fully participate in an online learning experience in a wiki environment. Dull participation is not just "point, click, read". Developmental psychologists such as Erik Erikson have attempted to characterize stages in human cognitive development. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the capacity for abstract thinking and drawing conclusions from collections of information does not usually develop until after age 12. According to Erikson, children learn to interact constructively with peer groups during the period from age 12 to 18. It can also be argued that these are important social skills that need to be learned in the "real world" where all sensory modalities can be utilized, not under the restricted conditions of sensory deprivation that apply to online communities.

Wikiversity does include online educational resources for all grade levels. For young students, the use of such materials should probably be in a setting where they have direct contact with other people.

Where to start
If you like the idea of a learning environment where you are in control and you are free to learn about those topics that most interest you, then Wikiversity is for you. If you are looking for a quick answer to a question, try the Help desk. If there is a conventional subject area that you want to explore, try browsing this List of Wikiversity schools. Wikiversity is built around learning projects. You might be able to match your interests to an existing project or start a new one.

title: Wikiversity:Wikiversity students


text:
Wikiversity:Wikiversity browsers

Wikiversity Browsers Many visitors will arrive at Wikiversity with the basic point-and-click skills of an internet surfer. Many will come by way of Wikipedia and they will be familiar with the idea of finding and reading Wikipedia articles. Wikiversity does host "learning materials" and links to online "learning resources". Some Wikiversity "Browsers" may be satisfied to just point and click.

Wikiversity is devoted to the idea of active learning. Learning within Wikiversity is meant to come from interactions with other members of the Wikiversity community and participation in Wikiversity Learning Projects. Full participation in Wikiversity requires that participants edit wiki pages.

Wikiversity "Browsers" should be encouraged to register, describe their learning objectives on their user page, and participate in Introduction to Wiki.

title: Wikiversity:Wikiversity browsers


text: Wikiversity:Student union

title: Wikiversity:Student union


text: User talk:Tspires

title: User talk:Tspires


text: User talk:Crankynerd

title: User talk:Crankynerd


text:
User talk:Lobke~enwikiversity

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Lobke. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Lobke~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:37, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:14, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Lobke~enwikiversity


text:
Wikiversity:Research community

Wikiversity is concerned with both the known and the yet to be discovered. An appreciation for the fluid boundary between the known and the unknown is one of the most important cultural artifacts that must be passed from generation to generation.

Education depends on knowing what already exists within the human store house of knowledge and making critical assessments about how to prioritize the presentation of that knowledge for learners. Exploring and categorizing existing knowledge can be called "secondary research". The distinction between primary and secondary research is analogous to the distinction between the published primary and secondary research literature. Primary research articles report the results of original research. The secondary literature includes articles that review and provide perspective on primary research articles.

Developing good secondary research skills (literature review) is an important skill for all Wikiversity students. Many Wikiversity "service projects" are concerned with secondary research and finding quality verifiable sources that can be cited in Wikipedia articles and Wikibooks textbook modules. A fundamental pattern of activity for Wikiversity participants is searching for information related to a specific topic, recording the results of that search in wiki pages and subjecting the results of such secondary research to critical evaluation by peers within the Wikiversity community.

Secondary research can be distinguished from primary research in that the latter is concerned with the discovery of new knowledge rather than the assessment of existing knowledge. However, the boundary between secondary and primary research is not well-defined. Good secondary research can often lead to new ways of looking at things and the creation of new knowledge. Primary research depends on secondary research. We risk wasting time recreating the wheel if we engage in primary research without being aware of past efforts.

Wikiversity aims to provide server space for a "virtual research commons", a place where on-going research projects from all over the world can be put on display and shared with students. Wikiversity is a hub for collaborations between researchers in the physical world and learners in online learning environments.

title: Wikiversity:Research community


text:
Wikiversity:Wikiversity teachers

In this resource the people here set out to orientate you, as a teacher, in the use and potential of Wikiversity for teaching. Anyone can take on a teaching role at Wikiversity, regardless of their background. You can participate in learning activities and create learning resources. Educators, school teachers, university professors, teacher trainees, group leaders in the informal educator sector, and students in a conventional education institution can teach as well. Other roles which might interest you include: learner, researcher, custodian.

Is Wikiversity a "university", a school, a playground or what?
Yes to all.

The word "university" is derived from the Latin “universitas”, which is short for "universitas magistrorum et scholarium", meaning roughly "community of masters and scholars". At Wikiversity, the terms "learner" and "teacher" are likely to be used rather than "scholar" and "master". The distinction between learners and teachers at Wikiversity is fuzzy. As soon as a student learns something, they are expected to share what they have learned with the community and so they become the teacher.

A playground is no less a place of learning than the most venerable of universities. Wikiversity is everything from playground to research institute, and it does not discriminate or judge anyone for being more one than the other.

However in one sense, Wikiversity is neither university nor school: it has no accreditation as such, because it is not an institution that grants university degrees or school leaving/graduation certificates. You can find out more here about what Wikiversity is and what Wikiversity is not.

How can I use Wikiversity in my teaching?
The fundamental principle is: any way you like.

Wikiversity uses the same software as Wikipedia, and this software is called MediaWiki. MediaWiki is primarily a collaborative authoring environment, also known as a place where people make things together! In general, any kind of classroom activity which can use collaborative authoring in any sense can be fruitfully transferred onto the MediaWiki platform. Collaborative authoring is good for any kind of group work.

On the other hand, you know, of course, that the MediaWiki platform is also used for Wikipedia, which is a collection of encyclopedia articles. The MediaWiki platform therefore also lends itself naturally to use as a repository of learning materials for individual study. Projects and resources can, of course, double up in their roles for group work and individual study.

While we are open to experimentation with new forms of learning, we also know that teachers may prefer tried and tested methods, so we help you both with experimentation, and with finding out about existing forms of learning which use MediaWiki.

Existing forms of learning
Many other educators have experimented with MediaWiki before you, and they have produced both many practical examples of learning resources and theoretical articles about using MediaWiki for teaching.

Some examples

 * Collaborative Learning/Examples
 * Bloom clock project
 * War Seminar
 * Science as Religion

Places where you can find lists of learning resources

 * The learning projects portal

Places where you can find theoretical material

 * The Wikiversity e-learning model
 * Teaching
 * Learning
 * Learning projects
 * Learning resources

Experimental forms of learning
If you think of a new way of using the MediaWiki platform for learning, you are welcome, and please tell us about it! You may also be interested in looking at interactive learning resources and the sandbox server project.

How do I start to create materials or learning projects?
Take a few minutes to browse the Wikiversity content. Since Wikiversity is new, a webpage for the topic you are looking for may not have been created yet. Enter a possible page name in the Search field (upper right hand corner of the Wikiversity page display, normally) and Enter (or click on the search symbol). If the page does not exist, you'll see, at the bottom of the search results, "Create the page [Pagename] on this wiki!" Clicking on the Pagename will open an edit window from which you can create the page. When you save the page, congratulations! You are now a Wikiversity editor and participant!

 * For more technically-orientated information, see Help:Editing and ask questions.
 * For more educationally-orientated information, see learning projects.

Where do the students come from? Can I bring my own?
"Anywhere" and "yes". Anyone can learn from the materials or projects which you create here. But you are also very welcome to bring your own. Very often a particular project will have learners who have come here with their teacher, but this is by no means always the case. See also: Learning projects.

What are the admissions requirements? Are there fees?
Wikiversity is open to all who are interested in learning or contributing what they know. There are no fees and no admissions requirements. There aren't even any passwords or other access restrictions. Many virtual learning environments are full of passwords and even payment requirements for courses, but you will find none of this at Wikiversity - everything is open and free. See also: Open Educational Resources

If I teach, will I get paid, or can I charge my students?
No, no fees are collected or paid for participation in Wikiversity. Everything is voluntary. Wikiversity is free to all who want to learn.

You can freely charge your students on your own. Wikiversity content can freely be used commercially.

However, if you create Wikiversity content with the intention of then being paid for teaching it, or for participation in Wikiversity, this may create a conflict of interest, which, by the Terms of Use, must be disclosed.

Wikiversity has participating professors at brick-and-mortar universities who are paid for teaching (by the university, indirectly by students and others) and who use Wikiversity for this purpose. It must be transparent.

Can my students obtain any kind of certification at Wikiversity?
No. That's one thing we don't do. At the moment you cannot earn credentials here. But you can learn here and then earn your credentials elsewhere. Often a teacher may come here with their own students, and of course, what the students do here can count towards their achievements at the real-world institution they and their teacher come from. But Wikiversity cannot get involved in the assessment process.

Are there exams at Wikiversity?
Some course leaders may post some questionnaires so you can get feedback on your learning progress. Course leaders may also give personal feedback on their observations of your progress. Forms of assessment are purely in the hands of those participants who have a teaching role. Wikiversity may provide tools to assist with this process, such as the ability to embed interactive quizzes into pages. See also: making quizzes on Wikiversity.

If I'm doing a course-like project, can anyone join it?
There is no such thing as a closed course at Wikiversity, because everything is open. If someone wants to use the resources you have created, or join in with a course-like project, you can't stop them - in fact, quite the opposite - our principles of civility and assume good faith oblige you to be nice to them. On the other hand, you are not obliged to actively teach them. The learning projects article has more information about this.

How reliable is the material on Wikiversity?
There's no simple black-and-white answer to this question. Realistically you should use your best judgement. Factual errors generally get squeezed out fairly quickly. Matters of point of view and opinion take longer to generate consensus. In matters of authenticity and reliability we encourage you to contact editors of pages of interest and query them. Go to the "history" tab of any page of interest and discover who has edited that page. The general idea of wiki-editing is that low quality materials will slowly improve over time as more and more editors use and modify them.

Can I download materials here and use them in my own offsite classes? What are the terms of their use?
You are absolutely free to download and use our materials in your teaching. You can print and photocopy unlimited numbers of copies. Our content is licenced under a free licence (GFDL) - basically, requiring that the content be distributed in a similar licence and with attribution for the content's creators - see the complete licence details and terms. You are also able - encouraged - to help revise our materials. Better yet, you could post your revisions back to Wikiversity. Also post your experiences using the materials to the page's Discussion area. Give back and make Wikiversity better.

How can I determine whether the material here is any good?
By questioning, and by striving to understand the material yourself. It's your judgment call. If you can make it better, go ahead and edit. Note that every page has a "talk page" where you can post your observations and questions. You can review the "history" of a page, see who wrote which version and enter into dialogue with these individuals. Together we can, and will, make the material here stronger and stronger.

See also: Developing high quality educational resources for more information on this topic.

What if someone wrecks a perfectly good course?
If you see a page which appears (at least in your eyes) to have been degraded from an earlier version, then enter into the editing process. It's good practice to start by contacting the editor who made the changes you feel are unfortunate. Propose a compromise. Discuss your feelings on the "talk page". Don't be afraid to be bold. Integrate what you liked about the older version into the current version. Use the "history" tab at the top of the page to compare any two versions of a page and see what changed.

If you can't find a compromise with existing editors, then there's also the option of "forking" a course into two equivalent and equal versions covering the same subject but in different styles. In simpler terms, this just means that you take the earlier version which you liked, and create a new page to contain the older version.

See also: learning projects, which has more information on this topic.

Can I or my students have our own user pages?
Absolutely. A clickable tab for it will appear at the top of every Wikiversity page. Use your personal page any way you like. Introduce yourself, add pictures. Best of all, add Wikiversity page links and other links you frequently visit. Your page will greatly help in your own navigation and help others connect with you. You'll also get a separate Talk page where others can post messages for you. [ Create your free membership here.]

From the learning point of view, what is different from Wikipedia to Wikiversity?
Wikipedia has a narrow mission: the creation of encyclopedia articles. Wikiversity has a broader mandate to explore how to use wiki technology to promote learning.

Do you have learning resources which help students learn about editing this site?
Yes.

 * A tutorial for adding content
 * Another introductory tutorial
 * Article about adding content

Do you have learning resources which help people learn about Wikiversity?
Yes.

 * Introduction to Wikiversity - provides basic information and orientation for new visitors to Wikiversity.
 * Intermediate Wikiversity - you've made some edits to Wikiversity, now you need help so that you can get serious and edit efficiently.
 * Wikiversity (the rest of the story) - details about Wikiversity that only the obsessed Wikimedian would care about.
 * Learning by doing

See also: Topic:Wikiversity.

How to mark your pages as complete?

 * Completed Resources

When you have completed creating a resource page, a lesson or a course, you can use the new marking system for telling everyone your completion status. Instructions how to do this are at Help:Resources by completion status

 * Completed Lessons and  Courses

A new list is being created to list the completed (or almost completed) lessons and courses at Wikiversity. Contact User:Robert Elliott at Completed courses.

title: Wikiversity:Wikiversity teachers


text:
Wikiversity and Wikipedia services

Wikipedia is a Wikimedia Project that is like a wiki. Wikipedia allows different people all around the world to edit Wikipedia, changing and correcting. Wikipedia is like an encyclopedia, it holds information about different things, like people, events, places, etc.

Wikiversity strives to provide useful services to WikiMedia sister projects. A continual problem facing Wikipedia is finding good sources to cite. Many Wikipedia editors have a specific agenda and are perfectly willing to cite poor and unverifiable sources to support claims that are made in Wikipedia articles. Wikiversity is a center for scholarship in finding and critically evaluating sources. Wikiversity participants are encouraged to create Wikiversity pages corresponding to any Wikipedia article. Three types of Wikiversity Learning Project can be take a Wikipedia article as a starting point:
 * 1) Projects designed to find high quality, verifiable sources. These projects seek to evaluate the quality of sources used in existing Wikipedia articles and support study groups that seek to find better sources. See: Citing Sources. Example: the Free education Wikipedia page needs help.
 * 2) Wikipedia articles are written with the assumption that the reader has a certain basic level of knowledge. Wikipedia readers who do not have the assumed level of knowledge can benefit from a guide that might be called "what you should know in order to understand this Wikipedia article". Wikiversity Learning Projects that develop such introductory guides to Wikiversity pages are welcome.
 * 3) Some Wikipedia users may want more detailed information than is provided by a Wikipedia article. Wikiversity Learning Projects can be developed that take Wikipedia articles as a starting place for more detailed investigations of a topic. Example: Cell biology improvement drive.

Template for linking Wikipedia articles to Wikiversity projects
See: w:Template:Wikiversity.

title: Wikiversity and Wikipedia services


text:
Template:Wikiversity at Wikipedia

Wikiversity has, or is developing, course material about this subject:

This template is a self-reference and so is part of the Wikipedia project rather than the encyclopaedic content.

Usage:
 * 1)    - defaults to the page name
 * 2)    - uses the word "subject" in this example

title: Template:Wikiversity at Wikipedia


text:
Template talk:Learning project boilerplate

Directions for use
Place: in the edit window for a new learning project. Save the page.

General
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has directed the Wikiversity community away from courses (the Board's comments). Wikiversity participants are encouraged to innovate and create learning experiences that take full advantage of the wiki format of online community interactions. Non-traditional Learning Projects that are oriented towards learning about conventional course subjects are encouraged within Wikiversity. See: Learning and Portal:Education.

Your page should be named according to the name of the Learning project. Please use descriptive names. Good: "Introduction to Physics"; bad: Physics 101.

Learning Project summary

 * Course code: See the proposed Naming_conventions
 * Time investment:
 * Preferably measured in something that reduces to hours, ie. x hours for y weeks; tertiary semesters are typically 13 weeks
 * If possible, try to break it down into lesson hours (ie. time spent doing lessons), assessment hours (suggested time spent on assessment tasks), and reading hours (expected time spent on reading)
 * Assessment suggested: (eg. x000 word essay, multiple choice exam, piece of original work)
 * For Faculty, School, Department, Stream, Level, see Naming conventions

Other Wikiversity tools
For the lessons subheading, see Template:Blank lesson page - Color scheme 3. For the quizzes subheading, see Test and Quiz.

Also note the other boilerplates available under the Category:Page_creation_templates.