Research:Wiki4HE

Contact

Gomà

Polytechnic University of Catalonia

Research:Projects

This page documents a completed research project.

Key Personnel

Eduard Aibar Puentes
Joan Gomà i Ayats
Josep Lladós i Masllorens
Antoni Meseguer Artola
Julià Minguillón Alfonso
Maura Lerga Felip

Project Summary

The main goals of the project are:

Detect and measure sceptical attitudes in university professors regards using Wikipedia in class and establish if they are related to generational and disciplinary factors or to an implicit conflict between the scientific academic culture and Wikipedia culture.
Analyze the international experiences already carried on in applying Wikipedia in university courses.
Obtain a document of recommendations to help any university teachers to design, plan and implement new teaching practices using open resources and Wikipedia.

Methods

The research is based on an empirical study of the perceptions, attitudes and use of Wikipedia by teachers. This study will be conducted through an initial exploratory phase of semi-structured interviews in a sample of university teachers, and later through an online survey to all staff of two Catalan universities (Open University of Catalonia and Polytechnic University of Catalonia).

At the same time will take place a systematic study of the international experiences carried on by university teachers using Wikipedia, through an analysis model with standard parameters.

For this systematic analysis with standard parameters of the university teaching experiences that have taken place at international level, where Wikipedia has been used, in one way or another, as an educational resource, it will be designed, first, a qualitative analysis model based on standard parameters of documented educational experiences. The data not accessible through the Internet or previous publications will be requested directly to teachers and institutions involved. Moreover, by means of social network analysis the degree of reuse of the open resources used and generated in these experiments will be studied.

Here is where we wish to interview teachers involved in those experiences and some students. The exact size of the sample is to be determined but it will be about 100 people.

They will be identified trough the pages in wikipedia where those experiences are listed and contacted trough their Wikipedia user account.

Dissemination

We distinguish two types of dissemination activities according to the audience they will be addressed. On the one hand the specialized public and scientific community and on the other the public in general and particularly the public related to the objectives of the project, the university.

Regarding the scientific community the results will be presented in specialized international meetings like: The Open Education Conference (2013), Open Knowledge Conference. Open knowledge conference of the Open Knowledge Foundation. (2013), Open Educational Resources Conference (2013), Third international conference of the CPOV Wikipedia Research Initiative (2012). And published in some of the following international scientific journals: Journal of Computing in Higher Education., IEEE Transactions on Education Journal of Educational Technology & Society. Journal of Research on Technology in Education (JRTE). Internet and Higher Education. Social Studies of Science. IEEE Transactions on Education

Regarding the general public and professors the results will be published in the web page of the project, the project will be disseminated trough news published in different channels of the two participating universities and also in international initiatives like l’Open Access Week, OER/OPAL.The “Open Educational Quality Initiative” and trough OER INFOKIT

Wikimedia Policies, Ethics, and Human Subjects Protection

Benefits for the Wikimedia community

The final result of the project is a document of recommendations to help any university teachers to design, plan and implement new teaching practices using open resources and Wikipedia.

This will benefit the Wikimedia community by helping to bring more high quality editors and to reduce problems between this inicitives and the editing community.

Time Line

Data collection and analysis of relevant literature. From month 1 to 6 2012.
Interviews to UOC and UPC professors. From month 4 to 6 2012.
Design and developement of the project's website. From month 4 to 9 2012.
Anàlisi entrevistes i elaboració de qüestionari. From month 7 to 9 2012.
Sending the survey. From month 10 to 12 2012.
Processing and data analysis. From month 1 to 6 2013.
Documentation of existing teaching experiences. From month 1 to 12 2012.
Analysis of experiences and making their cataloge. From month 7 2012 to 7 2013.
Final report. From month 9 to 12 2013.
Disemination activities. Last quarter of each year.

Funding

The project is financed by an award of 39,292.83 € granted by RecerCaixa.

References

No published results yet.

Backgrownd references:

Black, E.W. 2008. “Wikipedia and academic peer review – Wikipedia as a recognized medium for scholarly publication?”. Online Information Review, 32: 73–88.
Brown, John S. i Richard P. Adler. 2008. “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0”. EDUCAUSE Review, 43 (1): 16–32.
Ebner, M., J. Zechner i A. Holzinger. 2006. “Why is Wikipedia so Successful?
Experiences in Esatblishing the Principles in Higher Education”. A: Proceedings of IKNOW 06, 6th International Conference on Knowlegde Management, Graz, Austria: 527-535.
Forte, Andrea i Amy Bruckman. 2006. “From Wikipedia to the classroom: exploring online publication and learning”. A: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences (ICLS '06). International Society of the Learning Sciences: 182-188.
Giles, J. 2005. “Internet encyclopaedias go head to head”. Nature, vol. 438, Dec: 900-901.
Hodel, Jan i Peter Haber. 2007. “Das kollaborative Schreiben von Geschichte als Lernprozess. Eigenheiten und Potential von Wiki-Systemen und Wikipedia”. A: Marianne Merkt (ed.). Studierenneu erfinden – Hochschule neu denken. Waxmann, Münster: 43-53.
Konieczny, P. 2007. “Wikis and Wikipedia as a teaching tool”. International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, 4 (1): 15-34.
Jaschick, S. 2007. “A stand against Wikipedia”. Inside Higher Education. January 26. Consultat el 23 de maig de 2011 a: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki
Light, Richard J. 2001. Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Merton, Robert. 1996. On social structure and science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Okoli, C. 2009. “A Brief Review of Studies of Wikipedia in Peer-Reviewed Journals”. A: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Digital Society. Cancun, Mexico: 155-160.
Wannemacher, Klaus i Frank Schulenburg. 2010. “Wikipedia in Academic Studies: Corrupting or Improving the Quality of Teaching and Learning?”. A: Martin Ebner i Mandy Schiefner (eds.). Looking Toward the Future of Technology-Enhanced Education: Ubiquitous Learning and the Digital Native. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing: 295-311.