User talk:Sage Ross (WMF)/archive 2

Working Wikipedian Barnstar

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	Wow! Someone has been busy working on Wikipedia:Training. Have a barnstar! Pine✉ 23:40, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Are there plans to bring this training over to Outreach to make it available for other projects and languages? --Pine^✉ 22:48, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure. The first version was put together on Outreach, but it's important for it to live and evolve on the individual wikis that are actually using it, so that the community on that wiki can keep it up to date and adapt it to their own needs. We're looking into translating it into Portuguese and possibly a few other languages, but I don't know whether maintaining a version of it on Outreach will be worthwhile (instead of simply using the version on en-wiki as the starting point for translations). It takes a lot of time to copy it all over, so I don't plan to do so unless there's an acute need.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

They are all subpages of WP:Training, so if you need, I could copy all the subpages over with a bot.Smallman12q (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. If they need to be moved over, I'll ping you about doing it by bot. At this point, there wouldn't be a purpose for it, though. These ones are still being tweaked, and we're making plans to have them translated based on the en.wiki copies for use on pt.wiki (as a start).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Re: Kitten

Thanks Sage! That's the first kitten I've received - I'm not a cat person but it's lovely! Thehelpfulone 00:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Permissions

I need eponline permissions. Also who gives the token for enrollment? Is there a guide to the new system somewhere? Also, great job on Wikipedia:Training=D.Smallman12q (talk) 22:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

You're all set with permissions now. The basic getting started guide is at Wikipedia:Training/For educators/Setting up your course. We've got significant improvements coming soon, I hope, so upon the documentation. An outline of the basic features is at Wikipedia:Course pages, and Help:Education Program extension has some basic instructions for specific tasks.

The instructor set the enrollment token. Now that you have the online volunteer right, you should be able to see the token, as well as edit the course page (and change the token, if necessary).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks.Smallman12q (talk) 20:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Regards

Hello Sage Ross (WMF). I noticed some images that you uploaded indicate you are personally acquainted with User talk:AaronSw#RIP. Very sad news. --My76Strat (talk) 22:06, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. I met him a few times. His death is a huge loss.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Problem with education extension

Hi, Sage, on the courses page, the default selection for "Status" should be blank. It took me a while to figure out that this was why my course page (planned) wasn't showing up.

The caching mechanism behind the education course page is messed up. I'm getting weird, flaky behavior, that's a little bit difficult to characterize, but here's one way to get a failure that seems pretty consistent. On Chrome:

• Clear all wikipedia cookies
• Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/, and log back in.
• Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Courses
• At this point I get a page with the Institition form filled out with "Johns Hopkins University", and only my Molecular Biology course listed.
• Click "view latest" at the top -- I go to the page with the form cleared and all the (current) courses listed
• Select, in the filter form, "Johns Hopkins University", and blank for the Status, and click "Go". I correctly get the page with just the MolBio course.
• Click "view latest" -- now I'm taken back to the page with the form cleared.

Basically, it looks like the caching mechanism is not taking the form POST data into account.

Klortho (talk) 03:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks much. I think the default status should actually be "Current and Planned", as once there are a lot of Passed courses, we don't want them shown by default. (Some other fixes for showing both current and planned courses are in the works, and I'll add this to the list.) We've got some caching fixes in the works as well, although the behavior you describe is one I think I haven't encountered or reported as a bug yet. I'll look into it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 04:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador

Request It appears that my request to be an online ambassador is non-controversial, so if you get the opportunity, please add the relevant userflags/rights ASAP--semester is a go. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:07, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Sure. I've been trying not to actively manage that process myself, since it will need to be done on an ongoing basis and it's not something WMF involvement is necessary for. But it is indeed non-controversial, so I'll give you the flag now (and wait for someone else to formally close your application when they get around to it).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks I appreciate your help. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment on current needs for Spring 2013 at WT:MED?

Could you comment here? Thanks again for your help. Biosthmors (talk) 14:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia Ambassadors update

Thanks for the message. I have posted there --Tito Dutta (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thematic organization list

I added the education program to the list of meta:Wikimedia Thematic Organizations since you announced it today. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm not sure why the working group hadn't added it earlier, as the plan to try to create a thematic organization has been public for quite a while now.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Doubled course

Hey Sage, there appear to be two copies of the same course at Red Deer College - this one has the OA, this one has the prof. Can we merge the two somehow? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Eep! There's no way to merge them, but we can pick one and delete the other. Probably we should keep the one that the professor is signed up for, and I'll reassigned My76Strat to it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, done that, but now we've got one OA here and here but a different one here. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think they are both going to support that course. Jonathan Obar has been setting up manual course pages because he thinks the new ones aren't good enough for the professors, so the nominal plan for the Canada classes (I guess) would be to just use the new ones to list the students and their articles. But we have some improvements of the course page features coming soon, so I think we'll be able to merge the new-style and old-style ones for that soon.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Rights templates

Hey, Sage! Would it be a good idea to create three templates for the respective levels of course rights? I realized it might be a good idea to have one similar to the ones for the other rights templates, since we really have no way to tell the new editors that they have been given rights during times of mass-rights times. If you think it's a good idea, I'll be more than willing to help work on it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by rights templates? Like userboxes for "this user is a course instructor"? If so, sounds good to me; go for it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I meant notification templates, in that we let them know that they have the right in the first place, since it is fairly easy to give someone the rights and forget to tell them. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:59, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, good idea.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, here we go: Courseonlinevolunteergiven, Coursecampusvolunteergiven, Courseinstructorrgiven, and Coursecoordinatorrgiven. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:46, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the links on my course page!

It's a great addition, especially the watch list button. Biolprof (talk) 00:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Difficulties with content areas on Course Page

Thanks for the wizard for adding timelines & grading rubrics to course page. I can't seem to figure out how to get the "Article banner" part to show up as its own content area in the "Contents" box up at the top. Right now it appears as a subsection under "Grading" ScottPKingPhD (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Scott. The way the wizard was set up, in automatically included that article banners part as a subsection of the previous section. But you're right that it doesn't make sense like that. I've adjusted the course page template; take a look at your page now. Is that what you were wanting it to look like?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Sage, yes, it looks better now. Much appreciated.ScottPKingPhD (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Sage Ross (WMF). You have new messages at Kevin Gorman's talk page.
Message added 21:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Admin rights and Education

If I go to Special:OnlineAmbassadorProfile or Special:CampusAmbassadorProfile, I can just create a profile for myself. This raises a few questions, since I don't have any of the education permissions set.

a) Is this because I have an admin bit? (or is it open for everyone?)

b) Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Become an ambassador has an application process for becoming an ambassador. Is that still in place?

c) If the answer to a) and b) is "Yes", can we please do one of the following?

i) Put a notice of the requirement on the Special: pages for admins by modifying MediaWiki:Group-sysop.js or MediaWiki:Group-sysop.css.

ii) Require admins to assign themselves the relevant userright before letting them see the page - this would allow continued access while providing a "warning, make extra sure you know what you're doing here" to the admin.

I haven't been following the education developments closely for a few months, so I could be completely off base here, but ... here're my 2¢ anyway. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's because you have the admin bit, and yes, the application process is still in place. I'll file a bug to make it so that admins still need the explicit ambassador bit before they have access to the profile pages. In the meantime, feel free to set up a mediawiki message if you'd like to. Thanks for bringing this up; I hadn't thought about this problem before.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll just leave it at that, then. I suspect that by the time I figured out how to make a notice appear on just those two pages, your bug request' have already gone through. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 06:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For diligent and imaginative improvement of the Education Project. I hope the WMF are planning to give you a bonus this year! Yunshui 雲‍水 14:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll pass the message about the bonus to HR. ;) --Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Special:RecentChangesLinked for Education Program

Is there a way to get a single list for student contributions for a particular course? Also another list for changes to articles assigned in the course? Essentially a watchlist for student contributions, and for their articles.Smallman12q (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

There is not, except if you are associated with a course (as an ambassador, for example) you get a feed of student contributions to relevant namespaces in the Special:MyCourses feed. At present, that feed also includes edits by ambassadors and instructors, but that will soon be fixed. It would be good, though, to have feeds available for individual courses for both of those things you mentions. I'll ask Jeroen to implement those. At the least, it should be very easy implement an independent feed for the equivalent of Special:MyCourses for any given class that is viewable by anyone.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 01:30, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me!

Hi Sage! Thanks for getting in contact with me.

I am trying to get a Coursepage set up for a course I am TA-ing in the Cognitive Science department at RPI. I've been granted Instructor Rights and will be setting up the Coursepage this afternoon. I'll need to add my adviser (the course's instructor) as well. Will he be able to have Instructor Rights for the coursepage, in addition to myself?

Can I list you as my Online Ambassador? I am not sure just yet how much assistance we'll need through the process. Within the next couple weeks, we'll be adding students and Article Pages to our Coursepage. Eventually, the students will be creating or substantially editing Wikipedia articles related to our course's subject matter.

Again, thanks for reaching out to me! --Melissa Parade (talk) 16:53, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for guidance: new coursepage

Dear Sage, Thank you for all your work helping so many. I saw your name at the education noticeboard site and wondered if you could advise me regarding the timeline for hearing back on my course page request? Thanks for your help! Darcie Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 17:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for feedback

Dear Sage, Thank you for your feedback. Yes, essay is the wrong term, as students are working towards a Wikipedia style article. My campus ambassador is Carrie Dunham-LaGree. Thank you again! Darcie Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Sage Ross (WMF). You have new messages at WP:EDUN.
Message added 07:37, 1 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Is there any way that you could please evaluate my request? I'm not sure if it was overlooked due to the additional additions or if it's still being processes, but I did notice that you've helped other instructors and thought that I would send you a message! Jackson Peebles (talk) 07:37, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Thank you for responding to my request for assistance; I truly appreciate it! Jackson Peebles (talk) 06:37, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Assignment templates

How is {{Course assignment}} different from {{Educational assignment}} ? It appears to be less functional than the existing template, and not currently used on any articles. Is this new template suggested by the templated course page? --Geniac (talk) 15:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's basically a stripped down version, since the more functional version seems to get misused a lot and doesn't (in my opinion) offer a significant amount of benefit. But I think we can add a bit more functionality (the ability to update the tense after the term is over) without adding any elements that students would need to manually change. Having a template that can simply be copied and pasted is key to it actually doing its job. Since it's not yet been used on any articles, we have some flexibility about it. I'll open a conversation on Monday about it. (See Template talk:Course page 2.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Special:MyCourses

Hi Sage. Quick query re. this page - is it possible to filter the results somehow to exclude my own edits? I do a whole ton of other stuff on Wikipedia, and the MyCourses feed is basically 99% me - I'd like to be able to pick up on the students' edits, since I already know what I'm up to... If it's possible, it might be worth implementing something to stop Ambassador's edits from appearing in this feed full stop, since I suspect I'm not the only one who'll have this problem. Cheers, Yunshui 雲‍水 16:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a known issue, and hopefully we'll deploy a fix for it soon, so that only student edits show up in the feed. I don't think it's part of the updates that are already in the deployment pipeline, but I'm asking Jeroen (the developer) to make it a priority.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Course Instructor Rights

I have completed the training and accessed the great resources for designing my course assignment. I think I am ready to get started on the course page!S L Seston (talk) 17:45, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Getting listed as an Ambassador on a Course

The instructor for our new course is still learing the ropes. Does she add me as the ambassador? Can I also be granted instructor rights? I don't think she has requested rights for our course yet. Gregatmu (talk) 19:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

You should be able to add yourself as the ambassador. On the course page in the Summary box, there should be a link for you to add yourself. There isn't anything you can do with the instructor rights that you can't do already, except add yourself as the instructor. Once the instructor has gone through the training for educators, give me a ping to let me know her username and I'll give her the rights.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Course Rights

At User_talk:Smallman12q#Online_Ambassador, Panda6420 (talk · contribs) has requested instructor rights. Could you grant them. Thanks.Smallman12q (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Sage Ross (WMF). You have new messages at Theopolisme's talk page.
Message added by Theopolisme at 21:29, 5 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Sage Ross (WMF). You have new messages at Yunshui's talk page.
Message added 22:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Just in case. :) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Course instructor rights

Hello Sage Ross. I just wrote back to you on my talk page, but thought it would be polite to post here as well. You mentioned being able to help me get a course page set up for my students' wikipedia assignment. If you're still able to help, I'd be very grateful! With many thanks and best wishes, DrJennyCee (talk) 15:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Sage Ross (WMF). You have new messages at ToniSant's talk page.
Message added 12:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

ToniSant (talk) 12:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for visiting

Hi Sage, finally some time to respond to your message. Been meaning to get my course pages linked up with the education portal but have not had time! Also want to get some links and info set up with the biology portal and developmental biology portal. I've worked with User:NeuroJoe to set up me first wikipedia page for a course User:Hakeleh/BI513 Fall 2011, and just used the same revised template for my current course. Who is the ambassador on my campus? Any tips/ advice are appreciated, and I'll look at the sites you've suggested.Hakeleh (talk) 03:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Late to the party

Finally got with the program extension-wise. Just took a look at the My Courses page and I'm tickled pink. Thanks for getting this going, Sage. The Interior (Talk) 04:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Great! Glad you find it useful. Please give me a ping when you're using it and think of things that could make it better.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Ping, question. What is the time period for edits to show up in My Courses? Is there any way for me to set a custom range? Or does it just show all student edits since I last viewed the page? Regards, The Interior (Talk) 05:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

There aren't any ways to change the range at this point. Hopefully this summer we'll do a revamp of the activity feeds and add options to make them more flexible (possibly by porting them to use the coming Echo notification systyem). I'm not sure what the time period is... I think it's something like 3 days, but it only shows the latest 50 edits. Once you've played around a little more with it, let me know what you think the defaults ought to be, and I'll look into getting a few short-term improvements.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Will do, Sage. The default may be fine, I'll have a better idea once the students get busy. As they do tend to edit in sprees, might be that the 50 edit limit might drop a few edits for the more casual MyCourses visitor. Echo, echo, echo, interesting, interesting. Didn't even know about that. The Interior (Talk) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Training for talkback

Hi Sage; re Wikipedia:Training and these two edits which have popped up on my watchlist. There is a lot of similarity between the two editors: see all six of the following links: Mraleksrs (talk · contribs) Staceysavage1991 (talk · contribs). So, does the training course to which they were invited imply that {{talkback}} should be posted to Template talk:Talkback? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:41, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... Both of those users are in this class, and it looks like those edits were based on a misunderstanding of their Week 31 assignments. (The training doesn't include anything about talkback.) Thanks for pointing this out to me.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Please remove me as an online ambassador and remove my profile

Please remove me as an online ambassador and remove my profile. I don't have the necessary time to continue to contribute to this project. Thanks. :) Banaticus (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

You have to remove the profile yourself, which you can do by going to Special:OnlineAmbassadorProfile, unchecking the box about the profile being public, and then saving it. That's all there is to removing oneself as an active ambassador now.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 01:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I tried to remove my profile/picture from the box and it wouldn't let me save the page. I'll just go uncheck that box. :) Banaticus (talk) 01:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

online Ambassador

Thanks, But I'll be out of commission for atleast a week, got the darn flu. TucsonDavidU.S.A. 18:10, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

WEP tech issue

Sage, for Writing for the Web, the names of a few users I cannot see are Sschuurm and others are atran48 and Hibaq26 Professorclee (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

re: course page and such

Hi Sage

Thanks for the the offer of help, and the pointer to the new student training.

I did use a template / wizard to create my course page: Electronic Health Records (HIM5IHC); What more can I do? I would like to minimise the disruption to the students; this is a new experience for them, and I don't want to disconcert them.

Thanks Dennis — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dewoller (talk • contribs) 00:50, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Training/Newcomers/My sandbox

Hello Ross!

I have been adapting the Training to portuguese and I found something out of order. In Wikipedia:Training/Newcomers/My sandbox, the core template ask the newcomer to add italic and sections in the talk page, however the previous page don't explain how to do it. I don't know if it happens with students and educators training but I'm just pointing out a possible improvement. Regards, OTAVIO1981 (talk) 21:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Otavio! You're right; some of the pages have been moved around, and that slipped through. Actually, in the student and educator trainings, that first sandbox page comes before any of the pages about editing syntax. I think this is not a big deal, though, because the idea is to have the user explore on their own how to use the edit window and the edit toolbar (which people can often use to figure out basic syntax on their own).

However, one goal for further development is to replace the current info about playing in the sandbox to use a guided tour instead, so that there's some hands-on guidance while the user is in the sandbox.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Great! Please let me know when you replace current info by a guide tour. Look's like really interesting to help new editors support. Regards, OTAVIO1981 (talk) 14:01, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Input

I'd appreciate your input at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Secondary_sourcing_in_psychology_articles.Smallman12q (talk) 02:42, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for linking to this paper. I wasn't aware of it, but it covers several of the courses I was involved with. Cheers.Smallman12q (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

:-). In case you haven't heard it enough, you're doing great work with the APS classes. Hopefully we can bring some of the APS professors into the discussion and at least get everyone understanding each others perspectives a little better.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've started a list of issues with the USEP program at Wikipedia:Concerns with United States Education Program. Fee free to expand. It should help centralize the discussion so a guideline as to how to deal with the issues can be hammered out. Smallman12q (talk) 02:17, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

I just got out of the hospital and I'm still weak,I had more then the Flu but thanks for your get well.TucsonDavidU.S.A. 18:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Course pages sometimes shows up as "does not exist"

Hello Sage Ross, We continue to work on our Education Program:Drake University/Global Youth Studies (Spring 2013). However, it's tricky to link - as you can see, I did external link here. Sometimes, WP tells me that the course does not exist. I have been maneuvering around this by cutting and pasting on my page, but what am I doing wrong to get this message? Advice how to fix so I can quick reference an internal link? Will be teaching this again in the fall. Many thanks! Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 16:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Can you narrow down the circumstances under which it says it doesn't exist? The typical way to link it would be like this: Education Program:Drake University/Global Youth Studies (Spring 2013). It's working for me at the moment.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

When I attempt to do the same, the link box says "link does not exist." Education Program:Drake University/Global Youth Studies (Spring 2013). I just put the test link here to see if it works despite telling me the link doesn't exist in the "dialogue box". I will delete after test is done. Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 17:17, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Soooo, the dialogue box for the link in the toolbar tells me that it doesn't exist, but it works just fine. I have seen it in other instances, too. Thanks for your help. BTW, I read the Wikipedia:Concerns with United States Education Program article and related links, above. Useful to hear these perspectives.Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 17:17, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see! I never use that link tool, so I hadn't noticed that bug before, but it's not surprising... the Education Program: pages get treated differently from other pages and don't integrate with many of the normal features (such as "what links here"). The whole suite of related issues is something we'll be fixing this summer.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Monitoring my students' work in their sandbox

Hello, Sage, I just left a question for you on the Education Noticeboard [[1]]. The question is: can I access the sandboxes of my students? And if not, how can I best monitor their work? Thanks, Robert Kluijver (talk) 22:15, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, all pages the students create/edit are publicly accessible. The easiest way is to check the student contribution history and click on the page(s) they edited. It will show the latest version.Smallman12q (talk) 00:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Notice

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Class_of_1700_students_fill_Wikipedia_with_plagiarism._Response_from_prof_is_accusation_of_illegal_behaviour_by_editors. Thank you. v/r - TP 19:45, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Batch DYK for USEP

Could you look at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Batch_post_for_WP:USEP?Smallman12q (talk) 23:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks like you've got it under control. :) --Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 00:45, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Help us improve the Wikipedia Education Program

Hi Sage Ross (WMF)! As a student editor on Wikipedia, you have a lot of valuable experience about what it's like to edit as a part of a classroom assignment. In order to help other students like you enjoy editing while contributing positively to Wikipedia, it's extremely helpful to hear from real student editors about their challenges, successes, and support needs. Please take a few minutes to answer these questions by clicking below. (Note that the responses are posted to a public wiki page.) Thanks!

Delivered on behalf of User:Sage Ross (WMF), 15:50, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you help me find a featured article on a high school?

Hello Sage Ross, I was needing an article on wikipedia of a high school to use as a model for the article I'm currently writing about my high school. This article needs to be rated B class or better and preferably needs to be a public school. If you could help me locate one, I'd apprciate it. Thanks! -PikeSamantha7--PikeSamantha7 (talk) 17:42, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

(Talk page stalker.) There are examples in Wikipedia:Fa#Education. Happy editing to you! Biosthmors (talk) 17:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Biosthmors!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Articles for Creation problematic for School and University projects

Hi Sage, I thought it worth pointing you and others to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk#Class project.

A professor writes there, "Throughout the process of creation, we have been assured by everything in Wikipedia that articles did not have to be perfect to be put up, that posting an article was not the end of the process, but was rather the beginning of a process. To suddenly find out that what we've been told is not in fact reality is very disappointing and disturbing. Right now, when I report back to the English faculty at the college, I will have to discourage them from undertaking such a program."

An experienced AFC volunteer replies there, "The Articles for Creation space is not really suitable for class projects because timing is so unpredictable here. We are currently experiencing a severe backlog. Wikipedia actually has a very comprehensive support system for projects such as yours at Wikipedia:School and university projects". (Full versions of each comment are back at the above link - there's a bit more to it than just backlogs).

Posting this here because Wikipedia talk:School and university projects seemed overly quiet (although perhaps my logic is a bit circular there.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:24, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The best place to post such things these days is Wikipedia:Education noticeboard. I'll repost this there.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

setting up course page?

Hi Sage. Perhaps you might have a moment to help this person out regarding setting up a course page? If so, grand. If not, no worries. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:32, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Note that, as an admin, you have the ability (and, per the extension RfC, sanction) to give professors the 'course instructor' right at your discretion.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I do? How exciting!  :) In any case, I'm not entirely sure that this is the right thing for this person, as he/she is admittedly not particularly tech-savvy. But it's good to give him/her the option. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Question about http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Courses

So I was looking for an example course page, and the first few I looked at didn't do the trick. So I thought I'd look at Diana's course at Rice, and searched... but it wasn't there. Is there any reason why not all the current courses show up at this page? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:09, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and a somewhat related question: what's the difference between Spring and Q1? Having these overlapping categories (and perhaps there are others?) makes it difficult to see at a glance what courses are on the go at any one time. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Diana's courses were listed as ending today, so they don't show up at Special:Courses unless you change the filter from "Current and planned" to [blank] or "Passed". (It's a bug I hadn't noticed before that courses become "Passed" at the beginning rather than end of their final day, which I'll report now.)

Here are the course pages you were looking for:

• Education Program:Rice University/Poverty, Gender, and Human Development Section 2 (Spring 2013)
• Section 1 - I've linked the [edit] view, as that course page is not displaying normally due to a bug (a fix for which has been committed, but not yet deployed)

The categories come from talk page banners. Some classes (those using the course page wizard) have standard template code on their course pages using the standard term (2013 Q1, for the sake of not making it particular to the northern hemisphere). Others have put together their course pages themselves (or in a few cases, are using the legacy course page template that was the baseline before the extension became available), and so have different template code. Down the road we'll have better ways of helping students mark which articles they are working on (such as having them automatically post a talk page banner at the same time they sign up for an article on the course page), but for now it's a pretty meager hack.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I added the old template here (which was what got me searching in the first place), as the relevant course isn't part of the EP. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:55, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

A note of appreciation

I just took care of the message you left on my talk page, and it occurred to me that I really ought to come here also and let you know how, throughout all of the discussions about class projects, you are truly a pleasure to work with. You are consistently clueful, helpful, and efficient, and one of the best WMF folks in that regard. Thanks, and keep up the good work! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:19, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

'Tis true! Seconded! And thanks! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:51, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for the kind words!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 00:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Please check my students work

Hello Sage my students have mostly finished their WP editing assignments. Some have not done well but most have: they really took to it and enjoyed the experience. I think we have made some valuable contributions to wikipedia. One question I have: how can I check who wrote a particular section? For ex three of my students have expanded the page Contemporary Art in Egypt. There's one section here | Political Song & Music where I wonder who wrote the bulk of the text. Might have been somebody from outside my course. How can I found out who wrote a specific piece of text? Thanks for helping Robert Kluijver (talk) 22:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hey Robert. One can see every revision at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Contemporary_Art_in_Egypt&action=history and one can show a maximum of 500 and can compare to see the difference of any two versions out of each block of 500. Enjoy! Biosthmors (talk) 23:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Robert, you may also find this set of tools useful for efficiently examining many individual "diffs" in a page history or a user's contribution history. Please let me know if that doesn't meet your needs.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 01:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Oooh, I quite like that; have installed. But aren't there also tools that try to locate quickly who has added what text to an article? It can sometimes be a pain to look through long revision histories. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:46, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia:WikiBlame (both the actual WikiBlame site and a similar tool on toolserver) for finding the author of a specific phrase. Wikipedia:WikiTrust was a tool that could show you within the text of an article who introduce any given phrase (and how "trustworthy" they are based on their history of adding content that sticks), but as far as I can tell it no longer works. If there are others, I'm not familiar with them.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 01:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all the good tips. Both tools are very useful. The revision history was otherwise taking too long, and the search a bit too haphazard! Greetings Robert Kluijver (talk) 07:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

TrainingPages

Sorry, I wasn't checking that talk page. I think I've made the changes you want, but if not, please get back to me. Wnt (talk) 04:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Problem with student editor's edit

Sage: I'd be grateful if you checked Kvilla92 (talk) where I have detailed some significant problems with the an edit performed, I believe, by a member of an educational team. I'm picking on you because you put the prior post on that user talk page and seem to have something somewhat official to do with these educational projects. Regards. --David djlewis (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi! It looks like you're handling it appropriately. If you think the edit was unconstructive, feel free partially or completely revert just as you would with any other editor.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Howdy

Watch out for that Brandon guy. Kaldari (talk) 23:45, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Dogs are cuter.

-- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Sage Ross (WMF). You have new messages at Jackson Peebles's talk page.
Message added 20:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jackson Peebles (talk) 20:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

University of Pittsburgh library project

Hi, you were recommended to me by Piotrus (talk · contribs) as someone who might be able to meet with several staff members of the Archives and Special Collections Departments who will have history interns working this fall on a Wikipedia project. Basically, the project would entail improving pages related to Pittsburgh and Pitt history. We are new to Wikipedia and would appreciate any guidance you would be willing to give to us. If you are unable to meet are you aware of anyone who are local to Pittsburgh and may be willing to meet with us?Wcdst3 (talk) 18:28, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

@Wcdst3: Hi! (I'm replying with my volunteer account, as this is outside of what I do in my WMF capacity. Thanks for putting them in touch with me, Piotrus.) I'd be happy to meet with you and help you get started on Wikipedia. I'm often available on weekdays in the late morning; let's find a time that works. You can reach me by email to work out the details.--ragesoss (talk) 13:58, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Copy course page to use as a template for a NEW course?

Hi Sage! I'm teaching Developmental Biology again this semester, and would like to use my course page from the spring (Education Program:Boston College/Developmental Biology (Spring 2013)) as a template for my Fall course (Education Program:Boston College/Developmental Biology (Fall 2013). I'm doing the same course with a few updates, so I just need to change wikipedia project dates and add a little bit more information. Is there a way to copy the page as a whole? Can't get past the "course wizard" prompt. And, if I do it section by section, I'm afraid I'll short circuit other helpful things in the wizard. Suggestions? I got great comments on this project from my students. Really worked out well. I will need to find at least an online ambassador for this semester.Hakeleh (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

@Hakeleh: You should be able to copy the wikitext for each subpage from your old course into the corresponding subpage for the new one. (I'm not sure how you were using that DYK subpage, but that one isn't part of the wizard.) You can do this by going through the steps of the wizard, which simply prompts you to create each of those subpages in turn (with prepopulated content that you can just replace with the copies from your previous course). If you have any trouble with it, let me know.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:17, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sage! I of course kept messing with it yesterday, and ended up doing just what you suggested. I'm toying with using a table to list all of the WP assignment details. AND- quite nicely Keilana|^{Parlez ici} has offered to be our OA! She looks awesome! I'm psyched for the new semester. Hakeleh (talk) 16:19, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, congrats! Keilana is indeed awesome!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Education meetup Hong Kong

Hi Sage, in HK we were encouraged today to let you know our wishes regarding Wikipedia:Training and Special:Institutions. I'd like to see the combination of these; having the possibility to become tutor for a group of students and watch them doing the tutorial. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 08:54, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

@Pgallert: Thanks. Can you elaborate more on what you have in mind and what the use case is? We hope to be adding features to the extension in the coming year, including some form of integration between the trainings and the extension, but planning for that is at a very preliminary stage right now. So the more detail you can give on what you would find useful, and the reasoning behind it, the better.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Polytechnic of Namibia ponders to revive their University project, and we also have other train-the-trainer activities. Our challenge was in the past that some of the tutors, although being told to complete at least the tutorial before coming to that session, never did it---out of complacency or because they got stuck. The combination of the two tools would give me access to account names, without which I cannot find their sandboxes, cannot judge whether they need help, and so on. I could also use that combination for our rural outreach projects, where we do not get much further than an introduction in the two or three days that I meet them. I could give them the tutorial as homework and help them along on-wiki until we meet again for real article work. Hope that helps, please ping again if you need further clarification. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 14:13, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

@Pgallert: That helps a lot. From what I understand of what you just said, it sounds like you could get most or all of what you want by using the education program extension for that project. In that case, enrolling on the course page is the very first step students take, so you have all the usernames before they continue to other steps like trying out the training or editing a sandbox. If I'm misunderstanding you or that wouldn't meet your needs, let me know.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what the "education program extension" is. I noticed that Wikipedia:Training is not currently a course listed under Special:Institutions; that's what I thought of. Somebody (possibly me ;) ) designing a course page at Special:Institutions, under the institution "Wikipedia" or elsewhere, for the Wikipedia tutorial itself. Someone else coming along, wanting X of their students to do the tutorial, and to check that they do it right, e.g. not just clicking next => next => next, but really creating a sandbox, making text bold, etc. That's what I had in mind. --Pgallert (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

@Pgallert: The education program extension is a MediaWiki extension that adds features related to class editing projects. Special:Institutions is part of this system; individual course pages are the main feature. You can get an overview of how they work (and request the user right that would allow you to use them) by going through the last part of the "training for educators": Wikipedia:Training/For educators/Setting up your course.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:49, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

• The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
• The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
• The Teahouse new editor help space
• Wikipedia Help pages

-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Mission 1	Mission 2	Mission 3	Mission 4	Mission 5	Mission 6	Mission 7
Say Hello to the World	An Invitation to Earth	Small Changes, Big Impact	The Neutral Point of View	The Veil of Verifiability	The Civility Code	Looking Good Together

Get Help

About The Wikipedia Adventure | Hang out in the Interstellar Lounge

Misplaced Campus Ambassador application?

Hi Sage, I'm Peter in Australia aka Shirt58 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I think this is quite possibly a misplaced Campus Ambassador application. I know about as much about "Campus Ambassadors" as the apparent applicant, so my apologies if this is a fuddle-up. Pete. --Shirt58 (talk) 13:02, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Peter. I'm not sure what the situation is, but if Faisal simply posted in user space by accident, hopefully he will reply to your message and we can sort it out. Perhaps Tighe, WMF's Arab World education program manager, knows more about the context for that application.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:35, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Permission to Add Another Instructor to my Education Page

I want to add Antineutron as a course Instructor for my course Politics of Digital Piracy. Is this possible. Thanks. Atavel (talk) 05:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

@Atavel: Yes, that shouldn't be a problem. Just ask Antineutron to go through the training for educators and request the instructor user right near the end of the training, and then one of the educator coordinators can give them the account permissions necessary sign on as an instructor.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia training For Ambassadors

Category:Wikipedia training For Ambassadors, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 00:56, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Training slides

Hey Sage. Shouldn't all the training slides be tagged as being in WikiProject Help? Maybe you could do that if you get a chance? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:43, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: It could go either way. I don't see any particular benefit, but feel free to do so if you feel strongly about it. The best way to do it would be to modify the footer template so that all the pages get added with one edit.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 12:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmmm... Maybe I misspoke. Can you point me there with a link? I'm looking at Wikipedia:Training/Newcomers/index at the moment. I took a look at Wikipedia:Training/core/Text editing. Or are you saying doing so at WP:Training/footer2 would do the trick? I'm not sure how one edit would add all individual wiki-pages that can actually be edited (like Wikipedia:Training/core/Text editing—that's what I'm going for—into the help project), but I'm intrigued. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I misunderstood. That footer template is part of all the actual "slides" that users see when going through the training (and so could add a category to those pages, just like they are already in Category:Wikipedia training subcats), but not on the /core pages that hold the content. To tag the latter, each page would need to be edited; if you use Windows, AutoWikiBrowser would be a good way to do that quickly. (If you do it, just be sure to wrap the category in noinclude tags so that it doesn't get transcluded.) But I would suggest instead just putting main landing pages and/or the main training category into the WikiProject Help category system, so as not to clog it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors:: ping, just in case you didn't catch the reply here.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:59, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Who was it that did these videos? Learning how to do them is my wiki-backlog. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors:: I made most of the tutorial videos. Happy to answer any questions you have about them, although this kind of thing is pretty much a learn-by-doing exercise.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Cool thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:27, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Turnitin

Per this, and the discussion on the Education Noticeboard, I'm not sure why you didn't/don't use Turnitin. I think that's the standard plagiarism-checker in use in most universities, and it has the advantage that it keeps copies of everything submitted to it, so (indirectly at least) it has some kind of window on paper mills etc. It may be that you need to pay to subscribe, but that would seem to be an expense the WMF could spring for. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:18, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

@Jbmurray: If we had been doing the primary plagiarism checking ourselves, I think we might have used Turnitin. But that was beyond what the education program team had the capacity for. We talked with several companies, but TaskUs was the only one that turned out to be a viable option because of the complexity of what we wanted. I believe that part of the reason Grammarly was used is that TaskUs already had access to and experience with it. We sent them a set of test revisions (a mix of known plagiarism and ones we thought were clean, with plagiarism from a variety of sources) and they did well with it... even picking up some plagiarism in ones we thought were fine.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk)

Possible students editing

Can you check and see if you have a group of students in the Education program editing under similar registered names starting with User:BQUB13- followed by various names after the hyphen? We either have a mass of sockpuppets or several students editing, while jointly working on the same articles. I'm thinking we have a bunch of students, but I'm unable to locate the school. Can you help? Thanks, Cindy(talk) 12:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Cindy, you can also ask at the WP:ENB, which Sage watches. Sage recently told me that you can click on the logs for users to see if they have signed up for a course page in the Education Program: space. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:33, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I've already checked the editors' logs and nothing shows up. I also checked the noticeboard, but it appears to be more of an internal communication forum, so I just opted to contact Sage. I'm hoping to avoid an SPI if it is simply a bunch of students. Much rather offer some tips to the professor or Ambassador, if possible. Thanks for jumping in though! Cindy(talk) 12:42, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

@Cindamuse: I agree that it looks like a group of students, but I can't figure out any more than that. It has the hallmarks of an independent course being organized off-wiki.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a course from Queen's University, Belgium? It's the only university I can find that correlates to BQUB. Cindy(talk) 13:01, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Should be Queen's University, Belfast. Thinking it may be a biology class at the school. Cindy(talk) 13:24, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The most likely people to know something, or be interested in reaching out, are Toni Sant and Daria Cybulska, who are working on education programs in the UK.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

WMUK has no direct contact with Queen's University in Belfast, N. Ireland. I know that University on a personal level as I was a student there briefly in the 1980s. Yes, I'm that old! But seriously, more than happy to try to engage with them, as necessary, as soon as the EduWiki Conference is no longer taking up most of my time. --ToniSant (talk) 19:44, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting. The names indicate that the editors are possibly from Spain, rather than Ireland. And they're copying articles from the Catalan Wikipedia. I've tried to engage with them to no avail. I was hoping to steer them to the EP or contact their professor or OA, but they're not talking. At this point, I'm just keeping an eye out for them. They all seem to be editing the same articles, but I see more collaborative editing, rather than evasive. (Albeit that they don't talk with each other on-wiki either.) It may be that they do not fully understand English. I suspect that they may be copying content from scientific journals, but I don't have access to these journals to verify. Oh well. Cindy(talk) 20:15, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia brochure(s)

Thanks for alerting me Sage -- I made two small suggestions, one for each brochure. best --Janeatcc (talk) 00:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application, getting more input

Sage. The Original Soni's application is languishing. If I copied and pasted the contents of User:Biosthmors/Ambassadors into the WP:ENB and signed it, would it notify everyone listed? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: I believe that it would, although you might wait a bit before pinging everyone, so see if there is a response to your last post.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hi I have no idea how to help around with the Online courses and it does not appear like I'm doing much there either. Could you remove my eponline userright since it's useless with me at the moment? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 08:42, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

• • TheOriginalSoni. I'll remove the userright if you want, but I encourage to browse the current crop of courses to see if any of the topics interest you... and if so, just join the course as an online volunteer and check in on what the students are doing from time to time through your Special:MyCourses feed, and help out if you if and when you want.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

• I've given it more thought and joined a few courses as an online volunteer. Let's hope I can be of some use there now :)

Thanks,

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:19, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Instructor Rights Request for OU TA and Professor

Hi Sage. I was wondering if you could review / prod others to review Brent Purkaple's application for Instructor rights on the Education Noticeboard. Brent is one of my TAs in my class right now and is going to be TAing for Kerry Magruder in the Spring. They are wanting to run the Education Program in their class and Brent will be the point man for the project due to Kerry's time constraints. I am helping them to set up their course and will be here to answer questions or refer them on to you and Jami if they have any difficult issues. Thanks, John. Kirwanfan (talk) 16:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks John. I'll take care of this with my volunteer account (User:Ragesoss) soon, if no one else does first. And I'll be in Boston for HSS, in case Brent and/or Kerry will be there.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

None of us will be at HSS, but Steve Weldon will be, as will one of the other first years interested in Wikipedia, Kim Lockaby. She will be there for your workshop. I'm excited about all of the workshops and wish I was going to be there for them. Maybe next year. On a tangentially related note, we are going to organize a campus wide Edit-A-Thon in March for women's history month to add to articles on women in science. If there's anyway you can join in (either in person or online) we'd love to have you.Kirwanfan (talk) 16:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Awesome! I look forward to meeting Kim (and of course, seeing Stephen).

@Mary Mark Ockerbloom and Keilana: Meet Kirwanfan, an historian of science at the University of Oklahoma. Kirwanfan, are you going to put together a page on Wikipedia about the women in science edit-a-thon?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kirwanfan: - Lovely to meet you! Thanks for the intro, Sage. I'm working on a big list of women scientists (loose definition of scientist - social sciences, home ec, etc included) with sourcing to help at my own workshops at Loyola, if you want to pool resources that would be great! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:10, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sage - I was going to model a page off of the one that Girona7 did at Brown. @Keilana: - I'd be happy to pool resources. I think / hope that we will be doing our edit-a-thon in the library here at OU and will be making use of some physical book resources that Marilyn Ogilvie (an emeritus professor here) wrote on the history of women in science. However, I will also be collecting both names and online information resources as well and will be happy to share those. Because we are organizing this through a history of science department, I think our theme/goal/target will be on women in science pre-1940s. We will also make a list of women who have worked at the University and are in need of updates on Wikipedia. In the classes I teach, I ask the students to update a Wikipedia article rather than writing a term paper. I suggest that they look at biographies of women in science as articles in need of improvement, so I have some stuff that I have already accumulated.Kirwanfan (talk) 17:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kirwanfan: I love Marilyn Ogilvie's books and use them regularly in my writing. :) I would love to share names and online resources as well! Girona7 did a fantastic job with the Brown workshop and that is an awesome model to follow. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for tagging me, @Sage Ross (WMF): Have a great time in Boston. I made a short list of women chemists and online resources for the first GLAM Cafe and there are more (and other edit-a-thon lists) at our last Edit-a-thon page. I've been trying to find and release photos of women chemists, particularly from Jeannette Brown's book, African American Women Chemists. I will be excited to hear more about what you're planning.Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 21:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Course deletion

I didn't discover my error until Professorpotter contacted me 7 hours later and I don't remember the details. Maybe it did say delete at the deletion and I only saw "removed course" afterwards at Special:Log/PrimeHunter (text made by MediaWiki:Logentry-course-remove). It shouldn't be important what the logs say when the deletion has already happened. I don't dare test-clicking "delete" links at courses now to see what the page looks like when I have already messed up once and undelete still doesn't work. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:27, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks PrimeHunter. You can test with the example course you enrolled in (no big deal if that gets deleted for now), or create a new one and delete it, if you want to try.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Now I think I know what happened. I was trying to remove my test enrollment without knowing the right terminology. I got to Special:Courses which only showed the course I had enrolled in. There is no disenroll link on that page but in my admin account there is a "Delete" link at the end of the table row for the course. I clicked the link and got a pop-up box saying "Confirm course removal. You are about to remove course Example University/Example Course (2013 Q1). This will remove all associated student data!", followed by a button saying "Remove course". The word delete doesn't occur in the box and I thought it only meant all student data for myself, so I clicked the "Remove course" link. I wouldn't have made the same mistake at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Education_Program:Example_University/Example_Course_%282013_Q1%29&action=delete. That page says "Delete course" and "This will remove all associated students!" The pop-up box is less clear and looks a lot less like normal deletion pages which are not pop-up boxes. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

PrimeHunter: excellent. That's very helpful. I'll update the messages to say delete more clearly, like they do in other contexts.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:30, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Please also consider changing "This will remove all associated student data!". The other formulation "This will remove all associated students!" is much more clear that you are removing others and not just yourself. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:40, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

PrimeHunter: Yes, definitely.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's my patch for clarifying the course (and institution) deletion messages.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

This is an unrelated minor issue but since we are talking, I tried the Disenroll tab but then clicked the "Cancel" button instead of the "Disenroll" button. This produced the message 'There is no course with name "Example University/undefined"'. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Filed a bug.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T59957

Nice work!

		The Original Barnstar
		You've learned how to use basic wikicode in your sandbox. You can always return there to experiment more.

Posted automatically via sandbox guided tour. Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:04, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Remove me from course

On the example course you created please remove me. I enrolled but after reading the course schedule in farther detail I do not need to participate in the course. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StudiesWorld (talk • contribs) 18:05, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks StudiesWorld (talk) 16:13, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for help with Welcome to Wikipedia-2013 Telugu edition

		The Special Barnstar
		Dear Sage Ross (WMF), Thanks for your help with Welcome to Wikipedia-2013 Telugu edition --06:34, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Nice work!

		The Original Barnstar
		You've learned how to use basic wikicode in your sandbox. You can always return there to experiment more.

Posted automatically via sandbox guided tour. Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2013 (UTC)