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Collaborative Wikipedia Article Improvement

This document outlines an exercise for students to collaboratively rewrite and improve existing Wikipedia articles. Students are instructed to: 1. Work in pairs to identify an article relevant to the course topic that needs updating or additional perspectives added. 2. Familiarize themselves with the article's development history and work to improve it over a period of time by adding references and sources. 3. Document the editing process by taking screenshots and writing a description. 4. Submit a PDF or HTML document by the deadline summarizing their contributions and the collaborative history writing process.

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3 views6 pages

Collaborative Wikipedia Article Improvement

This document outlines an exercise for students to collaboratively rewrite and improve existing Wikipedia articles. Students are instructed to: 1. Work in pairs to identify an article relevant to the course topic that needs updating or additional perspectives added. 2. Familiarize themselves with the article's development history and work to improve it over a period of time by adding references and sources. 3. Document the editing process by taking screenshots and writing a description. 4. Submit a PDF or HTML document by the deadline summarizing their contributions and the collaborative history writing process.

Uploaded by

420
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Exercise 1

Collaborative History Writing


brief
• Find a pair for yourself.
• Identify one Wikipedia article that is in need
of an intervention: rewriting, expanding or adding
multiple points-of-view.
• We suggest to concentrate on a topic relevant
to this course and to avoid ‘people’ and
artefacts and other undisputable items
– [Link]
– [Link]
– [Link]
more suitable examples
Themes, concepts

• [Link]
• [Link]
• [Link]
• [Link]

Try to find something which You are interested, already


know something, or just want to find out about.
Approach
• Familiarize yourself with the development of the article, from
“Recent changes” and “Discussion”. Try to identify and document
the possible point(s)-of-view of the previous writers of the text,
and figure out, how the text can be improved.
• Write contributions to the article over the given period of time.
(ie. not in one day). Complement the article with references and
sources.
• Document with screen shots, the evolution of the article. Follow
the process.
• IMPORTANT:
If the article is very bad quality or passive, and during the time of
the intervention, no-one else contributes or discusses the text with
you, please, try to activate the article by inviting other people to
contribute, people from Media Lab, previous contributors to
article, friends, colleagues, etc.
Deliverable
• Make a PDF or HTML document which
contains screenshots and written description of
the process and activities.
• To find a way to present your contributions to
others, explore the tools MediaWiki offers
(Recent changes, discussion, etc.) to document
the process and result.
• Length max. five A4 papers.
Timetable
• 12.10.2006: Brief given
• 31.10.2006: Participants announce their article
– Post your topic to the Media Lab intranet forum as a reply to
the thread on the forum, url of the article + team names.
– A list of the selected articles will also turn up as a blog post in
the course blog.
• 7.11.2006: Deliver the article
– send the PDF or link to HTML document as in an e-mail to
[Link]@[Link] before 16:00
• 9.11.2006: Ending the 1st exercise
– debriefing
– looking through the articles, general discussion about exercise,
wiki, history writing, etc.

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