A friend of mine told me about a her experience with Wikipedia and plagiarism. The student's paper, which was turned in /very/ late after many extensions, seemed a little funny to her. She looked into it, and found passages lifted straight from Wikipedia. His defense: he claimed he actually wrote the Wikipedia entry in question and therefore was only quoting himself. I then explained to her how Wikipedia worked and made sure to show her the history tab. Cris Cristina Lopez, Ph.D. Office of Information Technology, Digital Media Center University of Minnesota 212 Walter Library 117 Pleasant St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-626-6639 Please visit our Web site: http://dmc.umn.edu Mark Warschauer wrote:
I had the exact same experience -- I taught an undergraduate class about Wikipedia, and showed them how to edit articles, and they immediately started vandalizing the one we were looking at. mark
This goes into the "anything else you wish to share" column.
I teach an Internet literacy class, and we spend a week or so discussing wikipedia. I teach this class in a computer lab, so each student has their own computer. I directed them to view the entry on Web 2.0 in Wikipedia. I asked them to read it, then view the history page. Much to my surprise, a few of my students began to edit the Web 2.0 entry -- but not in a constructive way. They were vandals. So, I seized on the opportunity to further highlight and discuss the principles of editing and authoring in wikipedia and the problems that vandals, such as my students, have on the site. It served as a surprisingly useful illustration of the joys and problems with wikipedia, and at my direction the vandals deleted their handywork, and the page was restored.
I guess this is a lessons learned story. I did not anticipate that my students in class would vandalze an entry. Perhaps the relative anonymity of the vandalism enabled them to feel more free to act that way (I did not know which student(s) engaged in the vandalism), or perhaps I just happen to have some hooligans in class (very likely). But, that hooligan-ness is likely shared beyond my UAlbany students.
So, when teaching undergraduates about Wikipedia, and perhaps assigning them the construction/watching of an entry, you might want to think about how to handle cases in which your students become vandals, and how to turn such acts into opportunities.
Regards, ~Jenny
Assistant Professor Department of Communication, SS 340 University at Albany, SUNY Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4873 jstromer@albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David M Silver Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:44 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] assigning students their college/university wikipedia page
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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