Encyclopedia talk:Main Page: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:45, 21 February 2007

Note: A long comment about content development that was added to this page by User:129.78.64.100 was moved to Wikiversity:Content development. --JWSchmidt 14:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

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Protection

Can we get an admin to please move-protect the Main Page? No reason for anyone but an admin to ever move it, and having that move tab up there makes it rather prone to be put on wheels. (Btw, "move=autoconfirmed" protection does nothing, since non-autoconfirmeds can't move pages any way.) AmiDaniel (talk)

Done - thanks for the heads up, and help. :-) Cormaggio ^talk 10:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Modifications to the main page

It is time again to discuss redesign of the main page. Two proposed (at freenode #wikiversity-en) ideas for the redesign are:

Most visitors to the Wikiversity main page are new to wiki and need help to understand what is going on at Wikiversity. The main page needs to be a resource for these new visitors.
It is time to have featured content on the main page with good examples that show what Wikiversity is about.

You can help at Wikiversity:Main page design changes. --JWSchmidt 17:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Interdepartmental Linking

If there is a better place to do this, please tell me and I'll move it elsewhere.

It seems to me that Wikiversity can profit by using a lot of interdepartmental linking. Many of the engineering, math, and science departments will share material, especially when it comes to introductory material. It seems to me, that it would be best to not repeat this material over and over in each individual department, but have all of the departments link to the one page, and then add their own supplements as necessary. For example, instead of having the Math, Physics, and Engineering departments each have their own page on how to take a cross product, instead have one page (say in the math department), that the other departments can then link to as a lesson. The more people that see a page, the more edits it will get, and the better overall it will become. Howeman 18:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Feel free to place this reminder on every "School:" and Topic:" content development project page: "Learning materials and learning projects can be used by multiple departments. Cooperate with other departments that use the same learning resource." (source) --JWSchmidt 18:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Multidimensional

One thing has bugged me for a while... how are we a "multidimensional social organization"? How exactly does that work?--Rayc 00:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it is trying to reflect the fundamental role of collaborative webpage editing in a wiki website. We collaborate on many "levels"; in editing individual lessons, working on content development projects in the "School:" and "Topic:" namespaces, at the level of Wikiversity-wide planning and policy and at the level of integrating Wikiversity with other projects. --JWSchmidt 00:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

On the phrase itself, I've a feeling that it was one of Reswik's - maybe you could ask him to see what he meant? Cormaggio ^beep 10:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Browse link too small?

File:BrowseSize.png

Click on the image to see the full sized image.

well i think that the lik to get to the course content and browse the subject schhols etc is way too small. it needs to be bigger and more centeral in my opinion Tigerboyce 20:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about the link that is in the left hand navigation side-bar or one of the links that is on the main page? --JWSchmidt 13:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

on the main page under the welcome area Tigerboyce 20:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I made the text of that section of the main page larger (see image to the right). --JWSchmidt 20:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

yep looks loads clearer. good job

Division of Culinary Arts

Hey, I'm starting to work on a division here, and wondered if anyone would like to help. Thanks! Bl a st 15,01,07 2246 (UTC -5)

Question about log-in

I was just wondering..is a wikipedia account the same as a wikiversity account? Are they interchangeable?Please call me cupy.71.143.188.187 03:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No, you have to create a new account here. You can use the same username that you have at Wikipedia. --JWSchmidt 03:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks71.143.188.187 03:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Help New Wikiversity in Malayalam (ml)

Hi,
I would like to start new Wikiversity in my language (ml.wikiversity.org) from scratch. Can any one help me?
Thank you
--Sadik Khalid 09:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sadik, you can start an "incubation" of a new Wikiversity at the beta wiki. If that is successful and you get the required number of participants (10), then you can request that it be set up as an individual project on the Meta wiki (requests, instructions). Good luck! Cormaggio ^beep 10:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Cormaggio
Thank you very much --Sadik Khalid 14:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome! If you want to ask any more questions, you can ask me directly on my talk page, or post them to the Colloquium. Cheers, Cormaggio ^beep 16:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

would like to join santhosh

Domain name

Hello. In exploring things related to Wikiversity, I figured this would be the best place to post this message. The domain www.wikiversity.com is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, but it leads to a page saying "This wiki does not exist", and a list of sister projects. Shouldn't this be corrected, to lead to the same place www.wikiversity.org leads to? Alex43223^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 21:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The page that is shown at www.wikiversity.com should probably be updated. Hopefully anyone seeing that page can just follow the first link on that page to the more modern list of Wikimedia Foundation projects. --JWSchmidt 22:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"Without having seen this I'd say from a newcomers perspective this would be very confusing, wikiversity needs to have simple access... people will continue going to wikiversity.com I'd say the only other way to go would be wikiversity.edu I'm not sure what the rules are for obtaining a ".edu" address, but besides ".com" that would be the only thing people will remember. Good Luck and Thank You to the Creators of Wikiversity! What an exciting project. - Student in Central California :)"

Wikiversity , as a real univercity

What i hope to see about this Wikiversity project is that it might (i hope, and with a lot of time an effort) end up like a real recognized university.And perhaps in the near future , form specialist all around the world at no cost and no discrimination on the past scholastic performance of the student.Since this would be the university that everybody contributes to , everyone could teach and everyone could learn. Ideally , the teachers should have some kind of formation in that domain for teaching but no actual teaching permit would be required .It would simply be the sharing of knowledge from those who know to those who wants to know and have a degree in some profession regardless of the individual.

Also , this university could also publish some research done by researchers. The researches would simply edit the research they would publish and only they would be capable of editing this specific research on wikivercity. In the end , wikivercity could go very far and become that Utopian university we all dreamed of.

The focus here is towards nurturing healthy and active online learning communities. What learning materials would you like to see here? --HappyCamper 17:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Top pre-prep school in London

Dear all,

I will be moving to london next month and I wanted to get some information regarding the best pre-prep schools. Is it better to choose private or public school? is there a ranking list of the pre-prep and prep schools?

Hi

Hi, everyone, can I ask what is Wikiversity and what can I do in the Wikiversity? Thank you very much. --Chaplin 08:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+'''Note''': A long comment about content development that was added to this page by [[User:129.78.64.100]] was moved to [[Wikiversity:Content development]]. --[[User:JWSchmidt|JWSchmidt]] 14:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
-== Structuring Issues and Tools ==
-=== Searching Wikipedia to avoid reinventing the wheel ===
-Much of the initial key work for this site SHOULD involve STRUCTURING the
-already existing wikipedia entries in a given subject area.  This will
-help avoid thin content and frequent reinventing of the wheel.
-A really good place to start for a course or a book is to look at a
-LARGE collection of existing wikipedia pages.  Allow people to modify
-and comment on WHAT pages should be in each collection, and how each collection
-should be defined.
-=== Sources of Courses ===
-One would want to gather subjects into groups or trees of wikipedia pages.
-What the University subject pages should be are ways of STRUCTURING and LINKING
-this already existing set of pages, and also ways of providing some guidelines as
-to what constitutes "a course-worth of knowledge", or a "chapter" or a "lecture".
-Another source would be to appeal to existing University faculty (particularly
-adjuncts - who teach a large percentage of courses at many universities) to
-put their own lecture notes or slides on the wikiversity site.
-=== What is involved in creating a course ? ===
-Creating a course is alot of work.  It should be done with attribution.
-Eg. Prof. X's course in Y.  Other course creators could cut, paste, mix,
-match and modify other folks pre-existing courses - (although they should
-  Link   to it).
-One might think of a course as a PATH through a given set of information.
-One has a collection of topics in the course, and connections between them,
-and an overview. It is also a finite amount (a semester's worth) of content.
-=== How do courses differ from books in these wikiprojects ? ===
-THIS SHOULD BE A DISCUSSION PAGE!
-Offhand, it seems to me that courses have exercises or assigned sequences
-of tasks, they also tend to have tests or projects, and some mechanism for
-evaluation of the level of knowledge that you achieved (versus SOME standard).
-They also tend to occur in FINITE groups of people and in FINITE time periods.
-This is important because students communicate with each other and learn from
-each other during a course.  This suggests for example that one might have
-Prof. X's course in Y - in Fall 2007 that might have a specific group of people
-who are following it at that time.  (The group and emphasis may be different
-next time Prof. X (or Group X) offers course Y when it is done at a different
-time and with different people).  Textbooks on the other hand are more uniform,
-and isolated.
-===  WikiBooks, WikiLectures and WikiCourses : Where to start ? ===
-A really good set of WikiTexts would be a very good way to start the wikiversity.
-Perhaps this should be done first ?   A
-lternatively, maybe each WikiCourse should '''aim at creating say 20-30 1 hour LECTURES'''.  Organizing courses by LECTURES may be a good way to start.  Eg. Have '''WIKILECTURES'''.
-(These could even be recorded or videotaped).  '''LECTURES could then be linked and unified
-into COURSES.'''
-It's depressing to go to a "course" and see less content than on an average well
-developped wikipedia entry.  It's much more tractable to think of creating
-one or a few REALLY GOOD LECTURES at a time than an entire course (unless you've
-already been teaching one).  Also, folks may want to link a given GOOD LECTURE
-into several possible related courses.  So a course could be a collection of
-GOOD LECTURES.
-===  SLIDES -> LECTURES -> COURSES -> DEPARTMENTS  ===
-In terms of lectures, one could consider the idea of overheads and/or
-slides.  The rule of thumb is - at least - one minute per overhead/slide.  Another
-rule of thumb (that will avoid dumping too much data on one slide) is
-that the SMALLEST font used should be 16 point font.  (The purpose of this
-is to avoid tons of details on an overhead).  (Alternatively, one can consider
-that each overhead/slide should have no more than 7+/-2 points, and (usually 3 to 5)).
-Aim for say 30 or so "slides" in a given LECTURE.
-Note : since the "Lecture" is read (unless video or audio recordings are allowed),
-then each "SLIDE" should have a seperate page of "COMMENTS and DISCUSSION" points
-that flesh it out.  Eg. the "SLIDE" is what is shown or put on the blackboard/whiteboard/overhead, the comments are what the "lecturer" "says".
-===  Class discussion ===
-Ideally, one would also have a "class discussion" page - where ONLY FOR SAY
-week - a small group of people who are following the course can exchange
-discussion on that week's "LECTURE" in the course (folks taking it on another
-week can start a new page).  Otherwise you have the bboard problem where there
-are 1000 messages from 100s of people who one never really gets to know,
-and many of the messages are very old or off topic.  A nice and important
-feature of a class is that one has a small number of "Classmates" who
-share the experience.  This would be tough to incorporate.  Any thoughts ?
-===  Good Luck !  ===
-Anyway, Best of luck on this project.  It's a wonderful idea, but it's
-going to be a very difficult challenge.
-                                        [[User:129.78.64.100|129.78.64.100]] 14:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC) G. Holt
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