1. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia Imagine a world in which every single person is given the free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing. How? Nobody knows everything…...but everyone knows something. Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl User:Piotruspiokon@post.pl

2. What is Wiki? Collaborative software for a website anybody can edit Requires only a computer, Internet connection and web browser a very simple language a very simple language Editing features: a very simple languagea very simple language –’’’text’’’ to put text in bold. –[[link]] to create a link… Organisational features: hyperlinks, categories Community features: talk pages, access levels Quality control features : page history, logs of changes, watchlists, user contributions – users actions are reversable

3. Editing Wiki - example

4. The most famous Wiki: Wikipedia –A freely licensed encyclopedia GNU –Free in the sense of GNU: free as in free beer and free as in free speechGNU –Available in many languages – Written by volunteers – Neutrality – Neutrality as a bedrock principle Neutrality – Respect copyrights and other contributors –A large community with flexible governance

6. Wikipedia Growth Founded January 15, 2001 at an exponential rate at an exponential rateWikipedia and related projects have been growing at an exponential rateat an exponential rate Today: over 830,000 English articles and gaining 1,000 articles every day. Database size doubles every 16 weeks English Wikipedia is larger than Britannica and Microsoft Encarta combined 500,000 registered editors, 20,000 active editors (editing every day) In Top 30 most popular sites (Alexa rank), expected to be in Top 10 within a year

8. wikipedia.org britannica.com

9. Who runs the show? A1: Wikipedia creates its own rules A2: Wikmedia Fundation: An international non- profit organization –dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, – and to providing the full content of these wiki- based projects to the public free of charge.

10. But really, who pays for this? Individual donations - 79% Servers (hosting, hardware)

11. Wikipedia primary purpose: Research Strenghts Updated every minute Hyperlinked knowledge Neutrality Weaknesses Can be vandalised at anytime Digitial divide causes bias (through it can be also a source of strenght sometimes) Everything is a work in progress

12. Trust what you verify Can the content be trusted? Yes, but... Use multiple independent sources Examine an article's history Quality control tools: recent changes, watchlists, compare history, reverse changes, protect, block, user contribution, talk

13. Tips'n'tricks Wikipedia:Researching with WikipediaWikipedia:Researching with WikipediaWikipedia:Researching with WikipediaWikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia Ask questions: Wikipedia:Reference deskWikipedia:Reference desk - ask about anythingWikipedia:Reference deskWikipedia:Reference desk Each article has a talk page – ask about the article Take advantage of categories Print the “Printable version” Cite properlyCite properly: link to stable versionsCite properlyCite properly {{sofixit}} {{sofixit}}Remember you can modify articles {{sofixit}}{{sofixit}}

14. Wikipedia in teaching Why students' work should be wasted? They can write papers on related wikis! Access: Student can access it later... you can access it later... everybody can access it later... and so everybody can benefit from it. Attract students: writing papers is not fun. Editing a wiki can be fun! Teaching students to contribute to the society and leave a legacy. Allowing the community do lessen teacher's workload. Follow the detailed progress of every student – and groups.

15. How to start: Wikipedia:Schools and Universities Projects Wikipedia:School and university projectsWikipedia:School and university projectsWikipedia:School and university projectsWikipedia:School and university projects List of projects completed and ongoing The Pitt-Societies Project is readyThe Pitt-Societies Project is ready - a specific example with ready to use templates that can be adapted to other coursesThe Pitt-Societies Project is readyThe Pitt-Societies Project is ready

16. Wikibooks Think free. Learn free. WikibooksWikibooks: Textbooks (started July 2003) – now has over 12,000 textbooksWikibooks Wikibooks's goal is to create a free reliable instructional resource It is not about profit or fame; it is about giving the end user control over what he needs Wikibooks are multimedia books, so they are suited to all learning and teaching styles: fort hose who read, write, listen, watch... Writing or improving a textbook can be a class project, too!

17. Wikiversity WikiversityWikiversity: a wiki project dedicated to teaching, created this September, now taking it's first stepsWikiversity Lecture notes Wikipedia:Schools and Universities Projects is only about encyclopedic content Wikibooks is only about textbooks Wikiversity can have everything else: Assignments, exercises, tests, exams Teaching materials such as slides collections Audio-videos, images (from Wikicommons) Collection of links to usable material on the net

18. Replies to common objections Wikipedia:Replies to common objectionsWikipedia:Replies to common objectionsWikipedia:Replies to common objectionsWikipedia:Replies to common objections Learning how to edit wiki is easy Others can edit it student works – but grading is easy with tools like page history and user contributions Wiki is not perfect: it's all public, so Blackboard will remain the place to put copyrighted information (also: privacy) It's so new there is little research on it. But everything has a beginning like this...

19. Copyrights GNU Free Documentation License GNU Free Documentation License All Wikimedia content is „free content“ under the GNU Free Documentation License :GNU Free Documentation License –Contributions remain the intellectual property of their creators (unlike most journal articles, for example) –Allows authors to retain attribution –Text may be freely distributed and modified –Derivative works have to be free content (copyleft) The GNU logo

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21. Related sites and tools (all free) Placeopedia Wikitravel Wikicities Offline editors Firefox toolbar extension