Wikiversity

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Wikiversity
Wikiversity logo.
Detail of the Wikiversity multilingual portal main page.
Screenshot of wikiversity.org home page
URL www.wikiversity.org
Slogan "set learning free"
Commercial? No
Type of site Educational, self study
Registration Optional
Available language(s) Multilingual
Owner Wikimedia Foundation
Created by Wikimedia Community
Launched August 15, 2006

Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project,[1] which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than formal content.

Contents

[edit] History

This section requires expansion.

Wikiversity's beta phase officially began on August 15, 2006 with the English language Wikiversity.

[edit] Project details

Wikiversity is a center for the creation and use of free learning materials, and the provision of learning activities. Wikiversity is one of many wikis used in educational contexts,[2] as well as many initiatives that are creating free and open educational resources.

The primary priorities and goals for Wikiversity are to:

  • Create and host a range of free-content, multilingual learning materials/resources, for all age groups in all languages.
  • Host scholarly/learning projects and communities that support these materials.[3]

The Wikiversity e-Learning model places emphasis on "learning groups" and "learning by doing". Wikiversity's motto and slogan is "set learning free",[4][5] indicating that groups/communities of Wikiversity participants will engage in learning projects. Learning is facilitated through collaboration on projects that are detailed, outlined, summarized or results reported by editing Wikiversity pages. Wikiversity learning projects include collections of wiki webpages concerned with the exploration of a particular topic.[6] Wikiversity participants are encouraged to express their learning goals, and the Wikiversity community collaborates to develop learning activities and projects to accommodate those goals. However, as the project is still in its early stages,[7][8] its learning model is still in development.

Learning resources are developed by an individual or groups, either on their own initiative, or as part of a learning project.[9] Wikiversity resources include teaching aids, lesson plans, curricula, links to off-site resources, course notes, example and problem sets, computer simulations, reading lists, and other as devised by participants - but do not include final polished textbooks. Texts useful to others are hosted at Wikibooks for update and maintenance.[10] Learning groups with interests in each subject area create a web of resources that form the basis of discussions and activities at Wikiversity. Learning resources can be used by educators outside of Wikiversity for their own purposes, under the terms of the GFDL (like Wikipedia).

[edit] Languages

There are currently nine language Wikiversities - English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Czech, Portuguese and Japanese; Wikiversity projects in other languages are being developed at the "beta" multilingual hub.

For newly established specific language Wikiversities to move out of the initial exploratory "beta" phase, the new Wikiversity community must establish policies governing research activities. Wikiversity may act as a repository of research carried out by the Wikimedia Research Network, or others who are involved in wiki-based, or other research. Wikiversity hosts original research in addition to secondary research, unless a specific language group decides upon no research. It is expected that researchers will respect and update guidelines for appropriate research through a community consensus process.[11][12]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Welcome speech, Jimbo Wales, Wikimania 2006 (audio)
  2. ^ "Wikis and Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool" by Piotr Konieczny; International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning;January 2007, Vol. 4, No. 1.
  3. ^ Approved Wikiversity project proposal, Wikiversity
  4. ^ Wikiversity:Learning, Wikiversity
  5. ^ Wikiversity learning model, Wikiversity
  6. ^ Wikiversity learning projects portal, Wikiversity
  7. ^ Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia, Ponders a New Entity: Wikiversity by Andrea L. Foster; The Chronicle of Higher Education; December 16, 2005.
  8. ^ Wikiversity Gains Momentum at PC World
  9. ^ "One Laptop Per Teacher: Content and Curriculum for (in-service) Teacher Training" by Ian Kennedy, Delia Pass and Roxan Cadir; Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007; pp. 2564-2569
  10. ^ Wikiversity:What Wikiversity is not, Wikiversity
  11. ^ Scope of research on Wikiversity (in development), Multingual Wikiversity hub
  12. ^ Wikiversity research guidelines (in development), Multilingual Wikiversity hub

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikinews has related news: Wikimedia Netherlands 2007 conference held on wikis and education
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity"
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