Submissions:2014/The 7 biggest mistakes the Wikipedia Education Program has made — and what we’ve learned from them

The 7 biggest mistakes the Wikipedia Education Program has made — and what we’ve learned from them
 * Title of the submission:

Education
 * Themes (Proposal Themes - Community, Tech, Outreach, GLAM, Education):

Curated Talk
 * Type of submission (Presentation Types - Panel, Workshop, Presentation, etc):

LiAnna Davis
 * Author of the submission:

lianna-at-wikiedfoundation.org
 * E-mail address:

w:User:LiAnna (Wiki Ed)
 * Username:

California
 * US state or country of origin:

Wiki Education Foundation
 * Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.):

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation
 * Personal homepage or blog:

Have you heard the horror stories about the Wikipedia Education Program? Student editors gone wild! Everybody plagiarizes! 1,500 students in one class! No way to track students’ work! Sounds bad, right?
 * Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal):

The reality of the Wikipedia Education Program work on the English Wikipedia is quite different — but that doesn't mean that some of those rumors you have have heard about Wikipedia Education Program students aren't based in fact. We’ll separate fact from fiction, own up to the mistakes we’ve made, and talk about how we’ve adjusted based on those failures.

In this 15-minute presentation, LiAnna Davis will count down the seven biggest mistakes the Wikipedia Education Program has made, and explain what the team running the program has learned from them to ensure they don't happen again. LiAnna has been on the Wikipedia Education Program team since the pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States in 2010, then known as the Public Policy Initiative. Over the last four years, LiAnna has supported the program managers in starting and running the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States, Canada, India, Egypt, Brazil, Algeria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — that's a lot of student editors, and a lot of options for mistakes!

But the session isn't just about recounting our past mistakes: it's also about explaining what we learned from them and how we adjusted our program plan to make the Wikipedia Education Program better. Our team is experimental and willing to try new things, but we're also data-driven and willing to acknowledge when something has failed and make appropriate adjustments.

We hope session attendees will walk out of this talk learning which mistakes to avoid making in their own programs encouraging new editors to contribute to Wikipedia, gaining an understanding of what works and doesn't work in the Wikipedia Education Program, and seeing how results directly affect program plans in an experiment-focused team.

15 Minutes
 * Length of presentation/talk (see Presentation Types for lengths of different presentation types):

Yes
 * Will you attend WikiConference USA if your submission is not accepted?:


 * Slides or further information (optional):

This presentation should ideally come after the "Ask the Wiki Education Foundation" session.
 * Special request as to time of presentations:

Interested attendees
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