Critical issues presentations/Creating a WikiMOOC collaboratively -- Can it really be done?

From Wikimania 2016 • Esino Lario, Italy
Submission no. 197
Title of the submission

Creating a WikiMOOC collaboratively -- Can it really be done?

Author of the submission
  • Shani Evenstein
  • Melina Masnatta
  • Floor Koudijs
  • Paola Ricaurte Quijano
  • Sara Mörtsell
Country of origin

Israel; Argentina; United States of America; Mexico; Sweden

Topics

Outreach, Projects

Keywords
  • WikiMOOCs
  • Teaching Wikipedia
  • Wikipedia in Education
Abstract

In the past years, with Wikipedia in Education spreading wider in the world and more and more educators getting involved with teaching with Wikipedia, there has been a growing need for having an online Wiki-MOOC. MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses, such as those available via Coursera, with one simple idea -- bring the best in the field to teach something, and allow thousands of students to participate together in an online learning experience in their own pace.

A Wiki-MOOC, then, would be an online course so good that we can simply send people a link to and they'll learn how to edit Wikipedia and contribute to the free knowledge movement. Sounds like a dream, right? That's exactly the sort of resource that every chapter wants, what every education program strives for and every aspiring wikipedian wished he had.

For that reason exactly, it so happened that various individual or groups in the wiki-verse have begun independently developing Wiki-MOOCs initiatives, in the hopes of creating the ultimate Wiki Course. Learning about this separate endeavors, the Wikipedia Education team leader at the WMF has approached the Wikipedia Education Collaborative, suggesting that we join forces & explore the idea collaboratively. We started off 5 women from across the globe (US, Israel, Argentina, Mexico & Sweden), but we are slowly expanding the group, including more cases and more interested Wikipedians in the process.

To date, we are still documenting various experiences worldwide, but our goal in the coming months is to go beyond "what is" and develop collaboratively a model to "what can be". Though we are only at the beginning of this process, we already believe that there is a lot to be gained from critically looking at this process.

Therefore, in this "critical issue" presentation, we propose to review our findings of our joint process and discuss together the following points -

  • Is an ultimate Wiki-MOOC really possible?
  • What are the main issues, both positive and negative, that came out of the process of working collaboratively on developing a WikiMOOC?
  • What are the benefits & challenges of working together on developing an online course, as well as spreading the search, reaching out to and including more individuals in the process?
  • And finally -- is it as effective as other wiki collaborations, or when it come to certain things, it's better to work separately?
Result

Not accepted