Create 2019/Contributorship as Scholarship: Increased Engagement Through MediaWiki: Submissions:2021/Editing seems too hard

This submission has been designated as a lightning talk at WikiConference North America 2019.

This session will summarize graduate piano pedagogy class projects that have resulted in the creation of content at Wikipedia and the MediaWiki-based International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP). Projects have resulted in: the creation of the Group Piano Wikipedia page, the creation of the List of Intermediate Piano Repertoire, recordings of commonly-taught piano repertoire, and the creation of new editions of scores that are made available via IMSLP.

The Group Piano Wikipedia project was completed by two students in the Fall of 2018. Using the WikiEdu platform, these two students gained insight into the principles, accepted norms, and writing style of Wikipedia.

The IMSLP Intermediate Scores project was begun in 2017 and has been revisited in two subsequent classes. This list of piano music has become a widely-used resource for piano teachers, averaging about 4,500 views per month.

As a corollary to the IMSLP Scores project, students have been asked to create recordings of intermediate-level piano music that are then uploaded to IMSLP. In doing so, they become more aware of this repertoire while creating aural models for piano teachers who might be browsing for repertoire to teach.

Students have also created new editions of music in the public domain for which there are no pedagogically-appropriate editions available on IMSLP. These new editions include intermediate piano sonatinas by Kuhlau and Latour, an early piano concerto by Mozart with a new student-composed cadenza, as well as a piano concerto by the relatively unknown French female composer Amélie-Julie Candeille.

These types of projects are often used in piano pedagogy courses. In addition to familiarizing students with course content, they often culminate in the creation of a resource used by students after the class is complete. By using Wikipedia and IMSLP to make the results of these projects public, students develop a sense of contributorship through scholarship. Student engagement is increased. Meaningful class discussions have been prompted by these projects. These included discussions of copyright law, the perceived value of printed scores and recordings, editorial and typographical differences between editions, and the canonization of standard repertoire. The larger impact of these projects is to allow students from a relatively small university to engage with the broader community and to make meaningful contributions to their profession.