[Air-L] assigning students their college/university wikipedia page

[Cristina Lopez]

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 at albany.edu
>> http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer
>>>  -----Original Message-----
>>>  From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
>>>  [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David M Silver
>>>  Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:44 PM
>>>  To: air-l at 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 at listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the
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>>>  Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>>>  http://www.aoir.org/
>>>
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>
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