wikiversity/wikieducator

[Leigh Blackall]

What are the differences between Wikiversity and Wikieducator?
What are the similarities?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of them both?
Why do you use one before the other?
Do you think the two projects should work more closely?
Should representatives from both projects meet in Wikimania this year to discuss all of the above?

--
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
SL - Leroy Goalpost
http://learnonline.wordpress.com

[Peter]

What are the differences between Wikiversity and Wikieducator?

- With wikiversity the core people seem more engaged
- With wikieducator the core people seem more grounded in pedagogy
- With wikiversity the curriculum seems more organized like a
university
- With wikieducator the curriculum seems more "organic" and organized
by learner needs
- With wikiversity the focus and curriculum seems to be on the
developed world
- With wikieducator the focus and curriculum is upon assisting the
developing world

What are the similarities?
- Both founded in openness
- Both require efforts from volunteers
- Both use mediawiki [for better and worse]
- current development seems more focused on adult education
- Neither seems to be focusing on a small device (mobile) interface
- Neither has a barrier to entry

What are the strengths and weaknesses of them both?

- Well maintained code base
- Strong and varied contributor community

Why do you use one before the other?

Depends on the context. Most of my focus is on ICT4D and I believe
WikiEducator is more focused on this area. In my mind singleness of
purpose provides focus and therefore a stronger foundation. I believe
this shows in WikiEducator vs Wikiversity.

Do you think the two projects should work more closely?

No, I think they should diversify even more. Trying to be everything
to everyone is hard to do. I think WikiEductor should continue to
close the digital divide and focus on K12 as their goal by 2015. And
wikiversity should focus on university curriculum.

Should representatives from both projects meet in Wikimania this year
to discuss all of the above?

Absolutely NOT!!!! Unless you plan on sailing there! If you are really
concerned about the planet, you no longer fly!!! I still get
frustrated by people who insist on flying places to meet. The
environmental cost is way to great! All wiki people should eat their
own dog food and use the wiki as a conference location!!!

[Peace and Grace]

Wow actually cannot agree with you more on most of things thank you

2008/3/18, Peter <praws...@gmail.com>:

--
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HELP项目https://groups.google.com/group/helpelephantsliveproject

[James Neill]

i'm new to both these - what's with the 'commonwealth' thing and wikieducator - that turned me away at first, i got the feeling it was kind of regional

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Web:       http://wilderdom.com
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Bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/jtneill

[James Neill]

or i hope not - colonial?

[Peter]

Leo,

It would be helpful (from a teaching / learning perspective) if you
had provided reasons why you cannot agree.

Thanks, Peter

On Mar 17, 10:08 pm, "Peace and Grace" <leolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow actually cannot agree with you more on most of things thank you
>

> 2008/3/18, Peter <prawstho...@gmail.com>:

[Peter]

James,

I strongly suggest you spend some time and look deeply into
wikieducator and the commonwealth of learning. They are doing some
AMAZING work (in my mind, the most amazing of any organization trying
to help close the digital divide and bringing people out of poverty).
They may follow their commonwealth roots, but more like an older
sibling that a colonialist...

Be Well...

Peter

On Mar 17, 11:27 pm, James Neill <li...@wilderdom.com> wrote:
> or i hope not - colonial?
>
>
>
> James Neill wrote:
> > i'm new to both these - what's with the 'commonwealth' thing and
> > wikieducator - that turned me away at first, i got the feeling it was
> > kind of regional
>
> > Peace and Grace wrote:
> >> Wow actually cannot agree with you more on most of things thank you
>

> >> 2008/3/18, Peter <prawstho...@gmail.com>:

> > Email: ja...@wilderdom.com <mailto:ja...@wilderdom.com>

> > Web:http://wilderdom.com
> > Twitter:http://twitter.com/jtneill
> > Wiki/blog:http://ucspace.canberra.edu.au/x/fIAeAg
> > Bookmarks:http://del.icio.us/jtneill
>
> --

> Email: ja...@wilderdom.com <mailto:ja...@wilderdom.com>

[Declan]

Hi folks,

I must admit that I had questions for Wayne about the Commonwealth
piece of it also. My concern was that perhaps I needed to be in a
Commonwealth country to participate. Clearly that was a groundless
impression. My students and I are happily contributing and will
continue to do so. I do wonder however if others had questions like
mine that went unasked. Have we lost some folks as nonstarters? I
did briefly search around for a US equivalent. I think creating such
an equivalent would be a waste of time and dilute efforts. Perhaps
it's time for a US funding agency to plop some funding down for
wikieducator? Ahh, but this would require some of us in the US to
craft a funding application.

The opening page clearly states that COL supports the initiative.
Perhaps a brief statement could immediately follow that. Something on
the lines of: "Wikieducator welcomes contributors from any and all
countries". My reasoning for suggesting funding from the US (or other
non commonwealth countries) would be to add other statements of
support next to the COL blurb. In addition, it would be one way for
us outside of the Commonwealth to 'pay our rent'. Right now I
contribute only content; I have not sent in a check.

[Peter]

Just some follow up on my sentiments about wiki people eating their
own dog food. Here is some good follow-up to the idea of online
conferences. It's time to take a stand and not put unnessesary carbon
into the atmosphere. We need to start serving as examples to our
children.

http://terrya.edublogs.org/2008/03/13/edtech-use-in-online-and-f2f-conferences/
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0820.pdf

if as EdTechs we can't be examples in this capacity, who will?

[Brent]

I think that the two will work far more closely with each other once the licensing issue is finally resolved ... which I understand is happening at some level. Some of you may know that I am actually a sysop on WikiEd and a Custodian (sysop) on Wikiversity and I find it really rewarding to be part of both of them ... for very different reasons.

I like WikiEds agenda on developing societies and the development of curriculum for use in distance ed settings, etc.... the PediaPress printing functionality is awesome in this regards. An is just fantastic for developing printable resources for f-2-f workshops (see: http://www.wikieducator.org/Using_Audacity).  I like the fact that WikiEducator can test out innovative wiki functionality like Kultura, Liquid Threads, PDF Printing, Content Package exports, etc. I love the pure innovation that goes on though in Wikiversity particularly around the ideas of "Learning Projects" -- this is not really something that goes on in WikiEd and may divert from the development of content that is really its core focus. WikiEd also does a great job of training people in wiki skills, Wikiversity -- not so much; most participants in Wikiversity are already coming from existing wikis like Wikipedia. WikiEducator has done more to train people/teachers up on wiki skills than any other wiki. This could be a great place to start a stronger relationship -- ie, Wikiversity could point newbies without much experience to WikiEducator for training on wiki skills.

I'm also using Wikiversity a lot to manage/record my own learning, using it as a sort of PLE.

I'd love to go to Wikimania (sorry carbon footprint ... but I want to see Alexandria sometime in my life and i hate sailing)... but unfortunately pending birth of second child will probably prohibit this.


brent.

--
--------------------------------
http://digitalsynapse.co.nz
http://greymatter.co.nz
--------------------------------

[Alison Ruth]

Hi Leigh

A quick and dirty analysis, but these questions intrigued me as I have seen Wikiverstiy many times, but never signed up.

Differences?
Superficially, the front page of both sites sets very different expectations and positions.  Wikiversity is fairly monochromatic, all the headings are on blue backgrounds.  It looks very formal.  WikiEducator, on the other hand, uses a different colour for each heading.  There seems to be a brighter environment at WikiEducator.

WikiEducator also has a big invitation in the second heading on the left.  "Join us today ~ You'll be glad you did".  Under this is a link to create a user account.  This is quite clever and potentially gets people in.  Wikiversity has a link to request content.  There's a barrier to participation. 

So a fundamental difference is between 'creating content' and 'requesting content', on top of the perceptual differences arising from colour and positioning of items on the page.

Similarities?
Both are actively attempting to create communities of learners.  The process for doing that is different for each and without delving a lot deeper, I'm not sure I fully get what the similarities are.

Strengths?
WikiEducator is an invitation to be a part of something, to create and grow the community.
Wikiversity is an invitation to learn about stuff.

Weaknesses?
WikiEducator is new, there seems to be more chaotic development.
Wikiversity seems to be trying to emulate the traditional university setup (they even call user pages 'virtual offices').

Why I use WikiEducator?
I use WikiEducator because it's more community focused.  It's attempting to create new ways of using technology to facilitate learning at a global level.  Wikiversity seems to be more about bringing to old to the new, rather than bringing the new to the old.  This latter is what I think is happening with WikiEducator.  Wikiversity seems very formal, WikiEducator seems like a chaotic outpouring of a bunch of passionate learners and educators.

Projects working closely?
There is always room for projects such as these to work together, but as I'm not involved in Wikiversity and only recently come to WikiEducator, I would not want to try to work out how.

Talks?
Definitely talks should be started.  There is probably the possibility of interlinking the projects and from what I can see, the tutorials WikiEducator has are potentially the reason it will be successful.



HTH
Alison

[James Neill]

also would someone be able to explain any similarities/differences in
governance?

[Cormac Lawler]

Hi Alison,

Your email has alerted me to just how god-awful we are on Wikiversity at giving an accurate and immediately accessible picture of what we do. Thanks! (And I mean that.)

I read with horror many of the things you wrote. "Virtual offices"? "Looks very formal" "Bringing the old to the new"? Wikiversity, in my opinion, is the very opposite of formality and old-ness - it is an experiment to try to imagine and construct a learning community (and system) from the bottom up.

However, what you've observed is completely valid - there *is* a fairly formal structure in place (for better or worse), which is an attempt to guide people to content and activity, but which sometimes gives people the impression (you're not the first) that Wikiversity is set up like a traditional university. And we have a very chaotic system of introductory pages, including the mentioning of virtual offices, which I'm now going to rewrite. ;-)

But I will counter: there is no distinction between either site in terms of passion or 'radicality' (if that's a word). *Both* sites are attempting to contribute something real and substantial to the world in the form of free educational content. Both are productively chaotic. :-) Neither is (in scope) any more new, old, formal or informal than the other - both work in light of existing educational contexts and practices, and both are trying to rethink and change those contexts and practices through a variety of means. And both have inherent barriers to participation - wiki technology is by no means ubiquitous or accessible to a huge proportion of the world's population.

But there are many baby steps to take along the way, and we need to construct our spaces around these issues, so that we encourage more people to understand our message, and to join the movement. I'm going to work today on addressing the issues you raise for Wikiversity - and I think we could learn quite a bit from Wikieducator at how to present ourselves better.

Thanks again,

Cormac

[Cormac Lawler]

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 8:32 PM, Leigh Blackall <leighb...@gmail.com> wrote:

What are the differences between Wikiversity and Wikieducator?
What are the similarities?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of them both?
Why do you use one before the other?
Do you think the two projects should work more closely?
Should representatives from both projects meet in Wikimania this year to discuss all of the above?

(resending earlier reply, which never made it to wikieducator list)

Thanks Leigh,

I don't have much problem with WV and WE existing independently to the extent that they are both developing repositories of free content. (Licensing issues exist, but I trust that they are being worked on.) My main problem however, is around the idea of developing an educational *space*, which Wikiversity is explicitly trying to do, albeit in a very experimental stage. Addressing this question requires a diverse community, and much creative thinking - and this is something that I would like to see more of. However, there being 'two communities', means that people in Wikieducator probably don't know of this question and initiative, and therefore do not participate, making this experiment an often lonely experience. Of course I would like there to me more sharing along these sorts of lines - and please forgive my shameless plug for my own research, which is attempting to address this question <http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Developing_Wikiversity_through_action_research>. :-) So I would very much like to pursue this discussion of how WV and WE can cooperate more - seeing as, with their organisational backgrounds being quite different, a merge of the two could be problematic.

Cormac

[Leigh Blackall]

Many thanks for all the replies so far.

One thing that attracts me as an individual to Wikiversity is the fact that it is in the WikiMedia Foundation fold. Just a small note relating to supporting bodies. It will be great when the interoperability between WikiMedia Foundation wikis is achieved, and even better when they adopt the innovations that Wikieducator have tested.

From an organisational perspective, seeing the Commonwealth of Learning behind Wikieducator is attractive (provided you are informed nd up to date with what CoL does). It says that Wikieducator is experienced and comfortable with the needs of educational organisations, and will work with you as much as possible. This is something that the Wikimedia Foundation does not do (and that's a good thing in the bigger picture IMO).

On with the discussion I hope...

[James Neill]

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Learning

"The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental agency of the Commonwealth of Nations headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1987 at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and established in 1988, COL’s mandate is to promote and develop the use of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies throughout the Commonwealth’s 53 member states, particularly among the Commonwealth’s developing nations."

Because of this apparent regional focus by the sponsoring organisation of WikiEducator I have chosen (so far) to put my materials into Wikiversity, in the hope that the contribution is more global.

If my decision has been misguided, please do inform/explain.

James Neill wrote:

also would someone be able to explain any similarities/differences in 
governance?




.

  

--
Email:     ja...@wilderdom.com

[Brent]

there's no prerequisite of association with the commonwealth at all to participate on WikiEducator ... and in fact there are arguably a far more diverse set of users on WikiEducator than there are on Wikiversity so far. I don't think see this as an issue really, but it has been brought up quite a bit. WikiEducator is also partly, you could argue, sponsored by the US -- they did get a fairly substantial grant frm the Hewlett foundation to do the Learning4Content project. I really think that using one over the other should perhaps come down to what it is you're trying to do. If you're trying to develop a chunk of content then WikiEducator may be a better place to work in; if on the other hand you're tyring to run a course with real participation and activity ... then the Wikiversity community might be a bit better place to look into. I really don't see why we need to just have allegiances to one or the other. My allegiance is to the idea of Open Education, not particularly the platform. If I thought connexions were the place i'd probably work there as well.... (i just happen to like the wiki way better.)

brent.

[Leigh Blackall]

Its not so much allegiances being talked about here I don't think Brent. It was actually James' decision to use Wikiversity that sparked my questions. James is a substantial change agent in his educational organisation in Australia, and teaches in a subject area that we also teach here in Otago. I was a little disappointed when I found out that he went for Wikiversity because it makes it just that little bit more difficult (technically) to use his content and to collaborate with him. If it creates a perceived difficulty to me, then it must be a significant challenge for the teachers I am trying to get to think and use OER.

Wikiversity and Wikieducator seem more like the same initiative than different and so appear to be diluting each others efforts (in terms of housing content, people, networks and media features in the one easy to find place). It could be that the "meta wiki" the wiki to watch over all MediaWikis will solve this problem, but is not here yet. Also, some technical fix once the licenses are sorted, to make it very very easy to simply cut n paste and for a user on one system to be recognised and logged in on the other, this would be great. But this has been something wanted in the WikiMedia Foundation projects for a long time now, but we're still waiting, and so its a somewhat diluted effort when the same over all objectives are spread across two domains...

So, personally I'm not convinced by the arguments so far as to why WV and WE are and need to be different. It would be like me saying, Otago Polytechnic is also OER with a slightly different twist so we'll set up our own spot here. While that may be fine, I do think it would further dilute the effort because WE or WV would have less members, less edits, less dialogue (all significant yard sticks in the promotion of a wiki project). Imagine if the membership, edits, and dialogue between WV and WE were more directly shared...

[Brent]

Yea, i agree with you .. in fact I think that both wikis could have a lot to learn from each other and would in fact complement each other very nicely. I've often thought about porting the WikiEducator tutorial to Wikiversity but that bloody licensing glitch!!!! The licensing issue is a total pain at the moment and may go a long way towards resolving some of this if content were more likely to be able to be reused between the two and in fact would go some way towards seeing a possible merger of contents and communities take place. (I also thought that Learning4Content could have supported Teemus course in Wikiversity...)

There may be some avenues we could explore technically to facilitate closer collaboration; "Open ID" for example -- could make it possible to login to either system and be automatically logged in to the other. There are already interwiki links setup in Wikieducator to Wikiversity (ie. you can use [[v:Composing_free_and_open_online_educational_resources]] to link straight to Wikiversity from within WikiEducator (would be nice if WV would recipocate but so far i've been unsuccessful in this attempt). There is I seem to recall a firefox plugin for shifting content seemlessly between similarly licensed wikis ... all of which doesn't mean a single wiki, but could be interim steps towards this future. I'm not totally convinced of the one-wiki-to-rule-them-all idea though ... homogenous systems that try to deal to the greatest number of preferences mostly end up catering to the middle of the road, the mainstream,  and exlude the smaller periphery groups. There is room for many wikis in this I think.

The significant advantage I think WIkiEducator has at this juncture is that its actually not tied to the Wikimedia foundation servers and techies ... this means that it can innovate technically based on immediate community input rather than consult the foundation that for the most part doesn't give that much of a toss (as we've seen) about Wikiversity, they're focused on Wikipedia and if it isn't good for Wikipedia it won't get into Wikiversity. The disadvantage that WikEducator may have at this point is that its' not tied to the Wikimedia foundation "brand" ... Wikipedia, which attracts users. Not that the foundation is having much time in the sun lately ... watch the foundation-l list for a while and you'll see why there isn't a lot of time for Wikiversity. Hmmm... Wikiverisity split from the Foundation ... fork perhaps?

I've spoken to Cormac recently about how I think mediawiki (out of the box, which is pretty much what you get on Wikiversity) sucks for facilitating social interaction between students/learners/facilitators, they all somewhat suck at establishing any kind of real semantic relationship between content as well ... even though there are solid extensions available to facilitate both of these. But see above again .. the Wikimedia foundation's concerns are the large middle ground -- Wikipedia, not Wikiversity - which disadvantages Wikiversity.

i'm kind of sick of these discussions really... i hesitated before wading into this one. I nearly got castrated on Wikiversity for talking about closer collaboration between the two and it nearly put me off of Wikiversity. The cultures are very different when you get in behind the stuff ... edit on both -- as my Wikiversity mentor JWSchmidt often says ... most stuff is only an interwiki link away.

brent.

[Leigh Blackall]

Yep, well said. This is the convincing argument to me, and the reason I bring my organisation into WikiEducator. Thanks for taking the time to write this Brent. It confirms many things for me and suggests some practical ways to better compliment both initiatives.

[James Neill]

thanks for these thoughts everyone (brent, leigh, etc.) - i remain open
and persuadable

perhaps the answer for me is to use/try both

can i (automatically) use wiki commons stuff in wikieducator - that was
one of my main considerations - if i go under a bus tomorrow i would
like to have left my material is the most readily accessible and
re-usable location

will wiki commons ALLOW non-WM foundation wikis to be able to
automatically use content? i.e., is this just a matter of wikieducator
setting up to do so - or is it a matter of wiki commons being set up to
do so? easy inter-wiki sharing/use from an author's POV is most attractive

in teaching a university course, i can see a basic structure which i
could replicate and teach colleagues to use:
- open textbook on wikibooks
- course-related structure and learning activities on wikiversity
(again, the inter-wikiness here is attractive)

i haven't yet quite been able to visualise such a separation of
materials on wikieducator

maybe i can get over my allergic sense of post-colonialism in
wikieducator - since other's i respect suggest its a non-issue (and
correctly brent points out the potential for WM's US-centric funding) -
it's just that i kind of thought the commonwealth was dead in the new
world order - e.g. is there a wikieducator type model being pursued at a
UN level?

[Leigh Blackall]

Hey James, UNESCO is involved with Wikieducator but I think I'll wait for Wayne to return from his holiday to tell more about that.

As for a textbook/activities model.. see Otago Polytechnic's Anatomy and Physiology of Animals.

1. Textbook on Wikibooks
2. Work sheets on Wikieducator

However, with Wikieducator's print to PDF collections feature, it is increasingly likely that the text book will go on Wikieducator as well.

Another course that is in development along this model is Otago Polytechnic's Permaculture Design.

1. Textbook being developed on Wikibooks
2. Curriculum on Wikieducator

Once the license issue is sorted, I can see no reason to have all of this on both platforms...

[Randy Fisher]

Hi James,

I've been following this thread - ....from what I do know, WikiEducator has quite free and open licencing arrangements. In fact, very liberal...

Now, we wouldn't want you to meet your demise under the wheels of a bus, or the propellors of an airplane, but if you were, you could go comforted by the knowledge that your learning materials would be freely accessible to all, and could be modified freely as well.

If you need something definitive before Wayne returns from his annual pilgrimage to the home front (NZ), just let me know, and I can see what I can dig up....

- Randy

--
________________
Randy Fisher aka "Wikirandy for WikiEducator"
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Wikirandy

+ 1 604.684.2275
wiki...@gmail.com
www.hirerandy.com

Skype: wikirandy

[Randy Fisher]

Leigh, James et al:

Several items related to UNESCO:

• COL has a memorandum of understanding with UNESCO
• UNESCO had significant participation in the 2nd Learning4Content wiki skills training workshop - http://www.wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/Online_schedule/eL4C2
  
• WikiEducator will be announcing a significant collaborative activity with UNESCO in 2Q 2008

- Randy

[James Neill]

who's wayne?

[James Neill]

what would be the steps involved in porting a wikiversity page (and
sub-pages) to wikieducator and vice-versa?

[James Neill]

i get the feeling (based on comments) that there are more innovative
tools on WE (than WV)- are these part of the MediaWiki extension set? or
are they specific to WE?

perhaps someone like myself could be aided by a clear table comparing
the various features of the two OER wiki options (and the table could
obviously be extended to include other options) - does anyone know of
anything like this?

re the 'commons' - if I have a photo of X which could be used in various
contexts, my understanding is that one good place for it could be wiki
commons, allowing at least the WM foundation projects to readily find
and use it. for WE, how does it work - are such materials uploaded
directly or does it interact with other repositories?

[Leigh Blackall]

Copy paste is the only way I know how...

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 9:27 PM, James Neill <li...@wilderdom.com> wrote:

what would be the steps involved in porting a wikiversity page (and
sub-pages) to wikieducator and vice-versa?

[Leigh Blackall]

Hi James,

Wayne is Wayne Mackintosh from CoL and founder of Wikieducator. He is up on all the copyright and UN stuff. For my uses, if I find something on the MediaCommons I use it and rely on the intension behind the CC BY SA that WE uses. But Otago Polytechnic assumes a CC BY over all the material we publish on Wikieducator and that is acceptable to the Wikieducator administrators. See Otago's IP policy.

The features that WE has are indeed inovative and very cool. Some of them are extensions, and some of them are new developments, such as Kaltura collaborative nd web based video editor.

[James Kariuki]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Leigh Blackall
<leighb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Copy paste is the only way I know how...

This is tedious and error-prone. A simple google search yielded this
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Export

It is therefore possible to have a semi-automated export from one
installation of mediawiki to another. I have managed to get an XML
file of some pages from wikipedia, and it should be easy to import the
XML file to another installation (yet to try that)

--James

[James Kariuki]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 12:36 PM, James Kariuki wrote:

> This is tedious and error-prone. A simple google search yielded this
> link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Export
>
> It is therefore possible to have a semi-automated export from one
> installation of mediawiki to another. I have managed to get an XML
> file of some pages from wikipedia, and it should be easy to import the
> XML file to another installation (yet to try that)

Have tested this, you can actually do the import by pasting the XML
output of the export to the editor of your wiki page. There is however
more work to do in editing - See for example:
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Karitz/My_sandbox

An admin user can however be able to use the IMPORT facility.

--James

[James Neill]

Hi James - nice work on trying this out and reporting back.

This is a different one, but nevertheless an interesting example which perhaps can be adapted for more automated interwiki porting - my question in this case had been around how to use an image which was on wikipedia in wikiversity. The answer suggested to me was to shift the image from WP to wiki commons, then adjust the WP page to use the commons image and then I could also use the image in WV. This could be done manually (tedious), but this tool makes the process about 80% automatic:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commonshelper.php

Nevertheless, given the extra effort involved in interwiki porting, it seems to me to further underline the importance of choosing an optimal location for material in the first place. I've been imagining all the material sitting in WP which ideally should be ported to Wiki Commons and made available via interwiki linking to all other wikis....that's a lot of human (or clever bot) effort now needed to optimise the potential availability of the material.

I am a bit concerned that material uploaded to WE would be available, but perhaps not optimally so. Wiki Commons seems better, but still not optimal. Open to other suggestions. I liked the idea of the http://www.archive.org, but found it a bit cumbersome and haven't been back lately.


James Kariuki wrote:

An admin user can however be able to use the IMPORT facility.

--James



.

  

[James Kariuki]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 1:32 PM, James Neill wrote:
> Nevertheless, given the extra effort involved in interwiki porting, it
> seems to me to further underline the importance of choosing an optimal
> location for material in the first place. I've been imagining all the
> material sitting in WP which ideally should be ported to Wiki Commons and
> made available via interwiki linking to all other wikis....that's a lot of
> human (or clever bot) effort now needed to optimise the potential
> availability of the material.
>

There is some interesting discussion here:
http://www.nabble.com/Image-Import-td14758250.html

For the interwiki porting, maybe we need some sort of an API that
links between two installations and uses something like rsync in
linux. All that a user needs to do is to tag the files (or categories)
to be watched, and once in a while the files tagged and their links
(dependants) are copied over. So maybe for you case would be to list
something like
---------
$destination_site=wikieducator.org
$destination_user=usrnme
$destination_passwd=passwd

$source_site=wikiversity.org
$source_user=usrnme
$source_passwd=passwd

Files to watch
$file[]= destinationname sourcename
$file[]= destinationname sourcename

Categories to watch
$cat[]=destinationname sourcename
$cat[]=destinationname sourcename

-----------
Just a thought
--James

[James Kariuki]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 1:17 PM, James Kariuki wrote:

> Have tested this, you can actually do the import by pasting the XML
> output of the export to the editor of your wiki page. There is however
> more work to do in editing - See for example:
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Karitz/My_sandbox
>
> An admin user can however be able to use the IMPORT facility.
>

Check http://www.elearningfundi.net/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Log&limit=5000&offset=0

The Admin import work but the uploaded files cannot be copied across.

-James

[Cormac Lawler]

Hi, I would like to clear up a few of what I see as misunderstandings in this thread (and absolutely not necessarily in the mail I'm replying to :-))...

There is a perception that Wikiversity is more oriented around the developed than the developing world. This is completely untrue. The fact that a majority of the people in Wikiversity right now are from developed countries is because it does not have the same exposure, connections, and organisational background that Wikieducator has. It is true that Wikieducator is in large part oriented towards the developing world - but that does not mean that Wikiversity is somehow the opposite. On the contrary - a large (and core) part of the Wikimedia community have spent years actively searching for ways to service the developing world, and to increase participation from the developing world (for one example see <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_Academies>).

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is *not* a US-centric organisation - in its goals, in its operation (though it is based in the US), nor in its funding - what Brent pointed out is that *Wikieducator* has had funding from a US body (as well as the CoL), and so there is, again, no clear distinction on a US/developed/ing world level. *Both* organisations have a variety of modes of funding - though Wikimedia is predominantly reliant on public donations, meaning that it is in a continual struggle for funds. I would say this is much more the reason behind the WMF not appearing to some people (including Brent) to do a lot for Wikiversity - it is absolutely not the case that the WMF doesn't "give a toss" - again, quite the opposite. That things don't get done very quickly is quite simply because the WMF is still evolving into a structured organisation, and having inevitable teething problems along the way (as Brent points out). But the fact that Wikieducator has had funding from UNESCO does not mean that it is somehow more international - it is down to it having a better evolved organisational  context (even if that is simply "Wayne" :-) - in other words, I don't know exactly how Wikieducator is organised). And more organisational (as opposed to community) oversight of the technology is also why Wikieducator has been more free to experiment with the technical extrensions than Wikiversity has (though this is something I wonder about from a WMF perspective, I must admit).

Oh yes - Wikiversity is for content too! I know some people have argued against this (for various reasons), but Wikiversity is absolutely set up to develop a repository of educational content - as well as trying to develop a wiki-based learning space. This latter agenda much more reflects the interests of a few core Wikiversity people - including myself, Brent, JWSchmidt, and others - than the whole Wikiversity/Wikimedia community.

That's more or less the parts of this discussion that I was worried about. I think Leigh asked good questions, but I fear that some of the responses have tended to polarise some of the issues more than needs doing. I'm also frustrated and perplexed by some of the same things that Leigh mentions - mainly, for me, more than anything else, the lack of sharing *experiences*. I think we should be doing this much more but aren't - for example, this thread started between both mailing lists, but has now been channelled into just one, leaving out the Wikiversity community who haven't joined this list :-( (ie the vast majority) - which is why I'm replying to both lists.

Just on one more technical extension, James asked if there was a way of adding commons images into other wikis - yes, there's a proposed feature called InstantCommons <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/InstantCommons>, which will work on all mediawiki wikis, though I don't know how close to implementation it is. In fact, it strikes me that this is another really great thing to be working on as *joint projects* - develop technical wishlists and write proposals to fund their development. (This is what has happened with the PediaPress initiative, btw.)

So, that's about it for the moment. Maybe my clarifications went beyond what was actually said in this thread, but I felt it might be useful to say them anyway. :-)

Cheers,

Cormac

[Leigh Blackall]

Many thanks Cormac! As always, what you've said is fare and well considered. I agree that there has been polarisation in responses, nothing intentional, just a sign of something underneath the WV and WE projects I think... and the fact that the communication reduced to the WE list is simply because someone along the line did not reply all and everyone else got lazy. Thanks for bringing it back to both. Perhaps it would be worth considering a shared discussion forum not just between the two! A list for OER.. but then the little man inside me says, oh please not another list!

The media commons, actually, not just the media commons, what about the Archive too? and any other repositories of free and open media.. it would be fantastic to see smoother use of such media in compatible projects like WV and WE. But, quick and easy embedding of 3rd party media has been a rather furious debate on the WE list in the past, as I'm sure it would be on the WV list. Its gone quiet on WE lately, but boy I'd like to see it come alive again, but only so I can have it my way!... :) It would be such a brilliant thing to be able to quickly mashup free content like Flickr CC, Archive.org audio and video, Blip.tv, Ourmedia, and WikimediaCommons.. all of these have a variety of CC By and/or SA equivalent content, not to mention Public Domain. But, perhaps its not possible in these arenas, perhaps its a business idea for Google or Yahoo... but then we will suddenly see the arse drop out of both WE and WV I think...

[James Neill]

oh? so, i can't embed youtube, slideshare, etc.?

that was about to be my next step...

please share more about this aspect - which oer wiki can best allow me to embed such externally hosted content?


Leigh Blackall wrote:

_______________________________________________
Wikiversity-l mailing list
Wikive...@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
  

[Leigh Blackall]

Wikieducator at the moment. Apart from the Kaltura which will bring in Youtube clips in, you can see the hack work Brent and I did to embed other media.. http://wikieducator.org/User:Leighblackall/sandpit

As you can see, it is very very close to possible.

[Peace and Grace]

So Wikieducator canot embed Youtube or video now ?

2008/3/21, Leigh Blackall <leighb...@gmail.com>:

[Leigh Blackall]

So Wikieducator canot embed Youtube or video now ?

Yes it can. By using the Kaltura video player and editor most obviously, or by hacking the code in the link I provided to my sandpit page.

2008/3/22 Peace and Grace <leol...@gmail.com>:

[James Neill]

i'm trying this with slidecaste

this is how far i've got after 15 mins:
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Jtneill/Sandbox/Slideshare

i'm missing the "../../images/c/ce/MVI_4848.jpg" part i think - where did you get that from leigh?

==Mine==
<flash>file=AVPLAYER.swf|width=425|height=355|scale=noscale|salign=lt|flashvars=?posterframe=../../images/c/ce/MVI_4848.jpg&showvolume=1&showprogress=1&showplay=1&autoplay=0&fullscreen=0&dur=179&medianame=http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=descriptives-graphing-1205218721260828-2 =</flash>
==Leigh's==
<flash>file=AVPLAYER.swf|width=425|height=355|scale=noscale|salign=lt|flashvars=?posterframe=../../images/c/ce/MVI_4848.jpg&showvolume=1&showprogress=1&showplay=1&autoplay=0&fullscreen=0&dur=179&medianame=http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer2.swf?doc=open-educational-resources-and-practices4378</flash>

[Robert Kruhlak]

Hi James,

I removed an = from the file and it seems to work

--
Robert Kruhlak
Burnaby, BC
CANADA
(M) +1 778 230 1875
(E) kru...@gmail.com

[Leigh Blackall]

yes, I was also doing that

[James Neill]

thanks 4 yr help guys - but weird thing is it still doesn't display for me, whereas leigh's does:
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Jtneill/Sandbox/Slideshare

this is what i see:

Leigh Blackall wrote:

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[Leigh Blackall]

It is working my end now.. try refreshing?

[James Neill]

well that's extra weird, 'cos i'm still getting as per picture below with both FF2 and IE7

Leigh Blackall wrote:

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[Robert Kruhlak]

I see both option 1 and option 2 (using FF2.x).

Can you try viewing the page when you are NOT logged in?

My line of thought is that a user preference or add on you have may be
causing the problem.

Cheers
Rob

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 9:53 PM, James Neill <li...@wilderdom.com> wrote:
>
> well that's extra weird, 'cos i'm still getting as per picture below with
> both FF2 and IE7
>
>
>
> Leigh Blackall wrote:
> It is working my end now.. try refreshing?
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 10:15 PM, James Neill <li...@wilderdom.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > thanks 4 yr help guys - but weird thing is it still doesn't display for
> me, whereas leigh's does:
> >
> > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Jtneill/Sandbox/Slideshare
> >
> > this is what i see:
> >