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User:Polypompholyx/Science Communication

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Course name
Science Communication
Institution
Imperial College London
Instructor
Steve Cook
Subject
Life Sciences
Course dates
2015-03-02 – 2015-04-06
Approximate number of student editors
20


Science Communication Wikipedia project 2015

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As part of the Science Communication module for final year Life Sciences undergraduate students at Imperial College London, a group of students will select Wikipedia articles on life science topics to improve. Some will select stubs, but some will probably select more substantial articles to improve: some of these will suggested by staff in Department of Life Sciences as being in need of updating, referencing, or review. This is the first year we will be doing this using the Wikipedia Education Program, but it is the fourth year we have run Wikipedia editing as part of this course. Previous articles written or improved by students on this course include:



Timeline

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Week 1 (2015-03-02): Wikipedia workshop

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In class
  • You will be given a brief introduction to Wikipedia early in the week, and will register an interest in attending a Wikipedia training workshop. Those registering an interest will be asked to create a Wikipedia account at that time, and to do some pre-reading of Editing Wikipedia.
  • You will attend a training workshop on the anatomy and mark-up of Wikipedia articles, and on the etiquette of editing within a collaborative community. You will recreate a simple article in your sandbox to gain experience using the mark-up. You can also refer to Wikipedia's own online training for students.
  • The importance of writing in your own words and citing quality sources will be re-iterated. The importance of using only appropriately licensed media will be discussed, as will the implications of Creative Commons licensing.
  • During the workshop, you will be expected to commit five simple edits, e.g. correcting unitalicised Latin names and other general copy-editing, and to create a brief User Page.
  • We will discuss sensible choices of article for the class assignment, and the importance of making the article encyclopaedic, rather than an undergraduate essay. You may consider stubs (enzymes and taxa are often good targets), or articles flagged as in need of improvement or better illustrations, such as those below.


Assignment (due 2015-03-09)
  • Having attended the workshop, if you want to take the Wikipedia option for credit, you need to register an interest off-line with me, suggest a suitable article for editing, and propose a second-marker from the department who can comment on the scientific content of their article.
  • Those students who are then confirmed the Wikipedia option for their coursework are expected to create a User Page, and click the "enroll" button on the top left of this course page.
Milestones
  • All students editing Wikipedia for credit will have user accounts and pages, be listed on the course page, and will have discussed their proposed article with me by email.

Week 2 (2015-04-09): Writing articles

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  • By the start of the week, you should have selected an article to work on. You will then:
    • Note this on your User Page.
    • Add the title of the article to this class’s course page.
    • Mark the article's Talk Page with a banner to let other editors know you're working on it. Add this code in the top section of the talk page:
{{course assignment | course = User:Polypompholyx/Science Communication | term = Spring 2015 }}
  • You will then begin compiling the information necessary for your article, and start to draft your revised article in you Sandbox.
  • I will be available all week by appointment to discuss any technical problems you are having with the writing.
  • In particular, anyone having trouble uploading images should discuss this with me.


Assignment (due 2015-03-16)
  • By the start of the next week, you should have made some substantial progress in finding suitable sources, drafting the outline of your article in your Sandbox, and preparing any necessary media.
Milestones
  • Every student has a draft article in their Sandbox.

Week 3 (2015-06-16)

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  • You will continue writing your article.
  • Wikipedia is a community, and you will benefit from review by other editors. I would like each of you to give constructive feedback to at least one other student through their talk page on their article draft.


Assignment (due 2015-03-23)
  • By the start of next week, you should have a more-or-less complete draft of the article in your Sandbox, and have given and acted upon feedback from other student editors.
Milestones
  • Every student has a reviewed and largely complete article in their Sandbox.

Week 4 (2015-06-23)

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  • You will copy-edit the reviewed article, including the citations, and add any final touches to your Wikipedia article.
  • You will transfer your work to Wikipedia proper:
    • If you are creating a new article from scratch you should move it out of your sandbox into the main Wikipedia.
    • If you are expanding a stub article, you can copy and paste your draft into the stub article.
    • If you are expanding a substantial existing article, copy your edits into the article, saving after each edit. Do NOT paste over the entire existing article, or over large sections of the existing article.


Assignment (due 2015-03-26)
  • Your completed article must be committed to the main English language Wikipedia by the 26th March by 1700.
Milestones
  • All students have finished all their work on Wikipedia that will be considered for grading.

Grading

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  50%  
   Wikipedia-ness of your article (correct licensing, mark-up, review, adherence to community standards, etc.)
  50%  
   Scientific quality of your article
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