Students write Wikipedia articles as assessment

1. Students writeWikipedia articles as assessment Sverker Johansson Dalarna University Ylva Lindberg SchoolofEducation & Communication University of Jönköping

2. Learning outcomes & criteria for assessment • To categorize information • To buildknowledge • To identify gaps

3. Literary genres Aristotle Poetics Epic Poetry Drama

4. Genres – ”Wikipedia style” • 1 Literary genres • 1.1 Action • 1.2 Adventure • 1.3 Comedy • 1.4 Crime • 1.5 Erotica • 1.6 Faction • 1.7 Fantasy • 1.8 Historical • 1.9 Horror • 1.10 Mystery • 1.11 Paranoid • 1.12 Philosophical • 1.13 Political • 1.14 Romance • 1.15 Saga • 1.16 Satire • 1.17 Science fiction • 1.18 Slice of Life • 1.19 Speculative • 1.20 Thriller • 1.21 Urban • 2 Film genres • 3 Television genres • 4 See also • 5 Video game genres • 6 Music genres • 7 References

5. Learning outcomes & criterias for assessment • Information choice • Adapt the writingto the reader • Adaptto a genre • Chronology • Addition • Cause and Effect Modes: Sound / Image

6. Authenticassessment • Most assessmentusesartificialassignments. • Relevance? Student motivation? • ”Authenticassessment” is meanttomimic ”the real world” thatwetrain students for. • Still just mimic, not necessarily the real thing. • Authenticassessmentofskillssuch as identifyingknowledge gaps, structuring information, cooperativewriting, genre writing, and abilitytoexplaincomplexmattersto non-experts? • CanWikipedia be the answer?

7. Wikipedia vs. private wiki • Wiki software openlyavailable, easyto start yourownwiki, as alternative to ”real” Wikipedia. • Whyuse private wiki: • Controlled environment, morecomfortable for bothteacher and students • Nobodyelseinterfereswith student writing • Whyuse real Wikipedia: • Authenticity! • Student texts willactuallyhavereaders • Feedback from and cooperationwithothers

8. OurexperienceswithWikipediawriting as assessment Courses: • String theory (physics, final undergaduatelevel) • Science fiction & fantasy literature • Human evolution • Origins and evolution All coursesundergraduatelevel at Jönköping University. Taught in Swedish, writing on Swedish Wikipedia.

9. Student assignment • Write a Wikipediaarticle on a topic relevant for the course. • The articleshouldproblematizeitstopic, and shoulduse relevant concepts from the course. • The articleshould be accurate and based on reliablesources, with proper references. • The articleshouldhaveappropriatelinks and categorization.

10. Suitable and unsuitablecourses Suitable for Wikipediaassessment: • Course goalscompatiblewithcollaborativewritingofencyclopedic texts for laypeople. • Course goalsthatinclude information seeking, information structuring, and criticalthinking. • Course topicwithmany potential articletopics and poor existing Wikipediacoverage. Not suitable: • Course goals not served by encyclopediawriting. • Course topicwellcovered by Wikipedia, littlelefttowrite. • Course topic not separable intomanyarticletopics. • AfterseveralroundsofWikipediaassessment on the same topic, that part ofWikipediawill be ”exhausted”. • No Wikipedia-experiencedteacher in the course

11. Student reactions Mixed reactions – some love it, somehate it. • Someenjoy a real audience, somebecomenervous. • Technicalissuesrequiresomeinstruction, hurdle for less tech-savvy students, but not a big problem. • Somedifficultiesgetting the genre right and in general adaptingtoWikipediaculture.

12. AssessingWikipediawork • Wikipediatoolstodisentanglewhateach student has contributed: • ”Usercontributions” page • Article ”history” tab • ”Compare revisions” under history tab.

13. Examples of student work • https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategori:Strängteori • https://sv.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hård_science_fiction&oldid=9404921 • https://sv.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Homo_antecessor&oldid=14196339