Archive:Eduzendium: Difference between revisions

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==What does Eduzendium do?==
==What does Eduzendium do?==
The ''Citizendium'' invites university instructors to include the crafting of a ''Citizendium'' article as an assignment.
We encourage University faculty to use ''Eduzendium'' as a platform for their students to write original articles as a course assignment. The program is designed to be extremely flexible and adaptable. The students register under their real names as ''Citizendium'' authors, and must abide by the key rules that apply to all ''Citizendium'' authors, most importantly that article content should not be offensive or derogatory, and that they should not violate copyright law, including especially in the uploading of images.  
 
<!--Our project is open for collaborative educational and knowledge generation initiatives with higher education institutions. We strongly believe in the necessity of inviting experts of all kinds to help us build our repository of knowledge.
 
A distinct approach in this context is our policy of inviting the professors that teach and the students enrolled in advanced courses of the foundational/"fundamentals of" sort to help us seed or build up our entries with high-quality, clearly-argued and -written content. A pilot program involved major universities in the United States and abroad in late 2007, with good success. We hope the program will extend throughout universities in the English-speaking world.
 
Philosophically, we believe that the individuals who struggle with the meaning of fundamental concepts on a daily basis make excellent authors and editors for entries on those concepts. Advanced foundational courses are an ideal site for recruiting such authors and editors because their primary goal is to redefine and communicate for each generation the meaning of the basic and essential issues of our knowledge world. Furthermore, the activity of these seminars is often directed at producing short and insightful papers about some basic concepts which might or might not be later transformed into more "formal" publications. We believe that opening up the ''Citizendium'' to collaborative work on specific topic to students and their professors offers them the opportunity to take their work to another, more socially consequential level, which enhances the educational process on the one hand, while helping the ''Citizendium'' to build its socially involved and expert friendly knowledge environment, on the other hand.-->
We encourage faculty to use the ''Citizendium'' as a platform for their students to write original articles. There are few rules - all authors must abide by the key rules for all articles, most importantly that the content should not contain offensive or derogatory, and that they should not violate copyright law, including especially in the uploading of images.
 
The students register under their real names as Citizendium authors, and must abide by the rules of Citizendium.
 
The Eduzendium program is designed to be extremely flexible and adaptable.  


The course leader must
The course leader must
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It will be up to the course leader to set whatever specific guidance for the students is appropriate for that particular course. (For example, they may set a word limit, or require inclusion of figures, or specify a particular article structure, or number of references.) The task may either be ''formative'' (an exercise in developing skills in team work, literature research and presentation) or ''summative'' (for formal assessment). The page history will provide a record of every student's individual contribution. The talk page may be used for discussion amongst students and for feedback from the instructors.
It will be up to the course leader to set whatever specific guidance for the students is appropriate for that particular course. (For example, they may set a word limit, or require inclusion of figures, or specify a particular article structure, or number of references.) The task may either be ''formative'' (an exercise in developing skills in team work, literature research and presentation) or ''summative'' (for formal assessment). The page history will provide a record of every student's individual contribution. The talk page may be used for discussion amongst students and for feedback from the instructors.
<!--In other situations the professors can charge specific students to write specific entries, which can be evaluated and edited for content and style individually. Editorial changes can be operated by the professor, by a team designated by the professor or by his or her entire class. This can be done using our wiki platform, in which case the topic can be reserved and closed to public access for a limited period of time.  (You must ask, however, and make your intentions very clear.)  Professors and their students can obtain access to a specific namespace or wiki page, which will be editable and even readable only by them for a period of time (typically, until the assignments are finished). <!--Conceivably, some seminar might decide to work on their topics completely outside the Citizendium technological flow and only provide the ''Citizendium'' with the best of their finished products; that would be fine as well.
In a different scenario, the professor can assign the topics to the entire class, asking the members to work on them simultaneously and edit them during a period of time. He or she can intervene in the editorial process when and if needed. This, again, can be done inside or outside of the ''Citizendium'' process.
Finally, instructors can decide to work collaboratively on an existing topic in the public view and to assess the fruits of the collaboration through individual student reflection papers.
In those scenarios in which the class works outside the ''Citizendium'' process, or within a closed ''Citizendium'' environment (such as an ''ad hoc'' namespace), the professor or the class can look over the final product and decide if they would like to vet the product and make it into an "approved" ''Citizendium'' article. The instructor can then propose the topic to the ''Citizendium'' editors for introduction in the editorial flow.  Note that it will always be possible to link to a specific version of an article, even after it has been edited.  Note that professors need not approve articles; some may not be approvable.--->
<!--While ''Citizendium'' management gives a wide latitude to Eduzendium participants for purposes of choosing topics, professors may be asked not to choose articles that are currently undergoing active editing by ''Citizendium'' contributors.  This should still permit very wide latitude of topic choice.  Indeed, many course topics may not have any articles written at all.  (We would love for you to get us started!)
In essence, the Eduzendium program fosters real life conditions for collaborative intellectual projects within the participating seminars, which can result in a diversity of team (group) or individual projects. Instructors and students can get complete control over the degree and nature of the editorial process. Specifically, they can decide the nature of the assignments and the degree to which they will be completed in collaboration with other students or with the Citizendium community, the amount of work allocated to contributing ''Citizendium,'' the nature of the rewards and penalties to be used in assessing student work, and the quality standards of this work. Finally, they can decide if, how much and when their work can be officially published on Citizendium.--->
<!--==What are the educational benefits?==
Writing a high-quality encyclopedia article about a specific topic requires, and trains, a specific sort of effort or discipline.  Simply producing a suitably informative, but neutral, definition of a concept can require a great deal of thought.  Crafting a jumble of facts into a coherent narrative, which the ''Citizendium'' requires, is a difficult, but rewarding and educational task.  Furthermore, it practices a very useful scholarly skill to investigate and decide on what the most reliable bibliography items for an article are.
The educational benefits are plain if a student writes a general, neutral encyclopedia article on a topic, in addition to an opinionated paper about some special aspect of the topic.--->


==Some Citizendium articles that were started in Eduzendium==
==Some Citizendium articles that were started in Eduzendium==

Revision as of 06:47, 31 October 2011


Eduzendium[1] is a program in which the Citizendium partners with university programs throughout the world to create high-quality, English language entries for the Citizendium.

If you have registered with Citizendium, you can start a page for your Eduzendium course here. Just type the title of your course in this inputbox (it has to start with "CZ:", which we have filled in already), and a suite of course pages will be prepared automagically when you press the button and follow the instructions.


What does Eduzendium do?

We encourage University faculty to use Eduzendium as a platform for their students to write original articles as a course assignment. The program is designed to be extremely flexible and adaptable. The students register under their real names as Citizendium authors, and must abide by the key rules that apply to all Citizendium authors, most importantly that article content should not be offensive or derogatory, and that they should not violate copyright law, including especially in the uploading of images.

The course leader must

  1. ask students to register as Citizendium authors
  2. Place a description of the set task on an Eduzendium course page.
  3. Name a number of articles to be reserved for students on that course
  4. Start those articles and place an Eduzendium template on the main page, closing the article for editing by anyone except those involved in the course
  5. Specify an 'end date' after which the article(s) may be opened for general editing

It will be up to the course leader to set whatever specific guidance for the students is appropriate for that particular course. (For example, they may set a word limit, or require inclusion of figures, or specify a particular article structure, or number of references.) The task may either be formative (an exercise in developing skills in team work, literature research and presentation) or summative (for formal assessment). The page history will provide a record of every student's individual contribution. The talk page may be used for discussion amongst students and for feedback from the instructors.

Some Citizendium articles that were started in Eduzendium

University of Edinburgh; articles on the theme of Appetite and Obesity that were originally written by undergraduate students, working in groups of about 4 students.

Other examples

  • Developing Article Music perception: The study of the neural mechanisms involved in people perceiving rhythms, melodies, harmonies and other musical features. [e]
  • Developed Article Speech Recognition: The ability to recognize and understand human speech, especially when done by computers. [e]
  • Developed Article Mashup: A data visualization created by combining data with multiple computer applications. [e]

See also

  • A list of courses already integrated in Citizendium


References

  1. Note that eduzendium.org redirects to this page!


Citizendium Initiatives
Eduzendium | Featured Article | Recruitment | Subpages | Core Articles | Uncategorized pages |
Requested Articles | Feedback Requests | Wanted Articles

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