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Welcome to the education noticeboard

Purpose of this page Using this page

This page is for discussion related to student assignments and the Wikipedia Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Wikipedia editor.

Topics for this board might include:

Content issues created by real or potential student assignments
Improving student assignment output quality per the RfC
Questions about the trainings or any question from instructors or students
Discussion of the Wiki Education Foundation or the Wikipedia Education Program.
Students who have done great work and need {{The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar}}

Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith.

There are other pages more appropriate for dealing with certain specific issues:

An issue requiring immediate administrator attention → Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
Vandalism by non-participating students from schools → administrator intervention against vandalism.
Cut-and-paste moves/history merge → the cut-and-paste move repair holding pen.
Students revealing sensitive personal information → requests for oversight. Please DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone.
Course announcements from dashboard.wikiedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → /Wiki Ed course submissions
Issues related to dashboard.wikedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → meta:Talk:Programs & Events Dashboard
For a list of topics that students should avoid editing → Wikipedia:General sanctions#Active sanctions

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Best Practices for Teaching Students to Write Effective Lead Sections

Hello everyone,

I am an instructor guiding students in composing medical articles for Wikipedia. Currently, I am focused on updating our guidelines and have several questions that I hope you can help with. My questions here are generic questions concerning the lead section.

In our academic setting, we emphasize the importance of supporting claims with citations, and our grading reflects this by marking down submissions that lack adequate citations. However, the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section suggests that while the lead should be well-sourced, citations are commonly found in the body of the article rather than the lead.

Q1: Are we being too stringent expecting our students to include citations in the lead section since this is not an expectation from Wikipedia? Is it a major problem if they do provide citations throughout the lead? What justification can we provide for not including citations in this section?

My second question is on structuring. We currently teach our students that the lead section should not only summarise the main content but also reflect the order of that content as presented in the body of the article. We use Wikipedia's "featured articles" as exemplars and models for this. However, we recognise that Wikipedia articles are subject to ongoing edits and updates that may shift the content and structure over time. This dynamic nature can lead to discrepancies between the lead and the body of an article, especially if the lead does not consistently mirror updates made to the article's main content.

Given this:

Q1: Are we guiding students correctly on the arrangement and order of information in the lead?

Q2: When significant changes are made to the body of an article, is it a common or recommended practice to revise the lead accordingly to ensure it remains an accurate and concise summary of the article and mirrors the order of the content?

Thank you in advance for your advice and suggestions! G.J.ThomThom (talk) 01:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@G.J.ThomThom I personally enjoy the essay Wikipedia:How to create and manage a good lead section, I highly suggest you take a look at it as it covers a lot of these smaller details. In general if content is sourced in the body of the article it does not need to be cited in the lead. The exeption to this is controversial material. However quite a few medical articles will have citations in the lead because pretty much anything in the feild of medicine can be considered controverial in a way. As far as order I do typically follow the order of the body of the article but I don't think that is a strict rule. If siginificant changes are made to the body the lead should reflect that as well. IntentionallyDense (talk) 02:15, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, thanks for the link! We've had disagreements as teachers about what we mark down re citations. We understand that citations are required if the points being made are controversial but alas it's not always easy to identify if the content is controversial. So far we have told them, if in doubt, cite! Secondly, I take on board your suggestion regarding stubs. This is something I will bring to the team G.J.ThomThom (talk) 02:26, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would generally agree that with medical content it's better to cite than not to cite. IntentionallyDense (talk) 02:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First, your course on medical topics is relevant to two boards, this one, and wP:MEDRS, but given that most of your questions are about citations, WP:MEDRS is the governing principle here and this discussion would have been much better placed at WT:MEDRS, and not here, in order to get definitive answers to your citation questions. I urge you to move it there (see {{Discussion moved to}}; if you agree to move it but need technical assistance to do so, just ask).

Briefly:

Too stringent? – maybe, but they don't hurt, and no one will complain unless you pile up five at a time. There is no guideline saying you cannot place citations in the lead, so your are not violating anything by doing so.
Order: the lead need not follow the same order as the body, though often it does. Editing order is: body first, lead second (because it is a summary of the most important points of the body).
Discrepancies: Yes, revise the lead after altering the body if the changes there significantly alter the most important points of the body. A great many body edits will not be in this category, and require no changes to the lead. A typical newbie mistake is to head straight for the lead and start altering it (or worse, the lead sentence, with no consideration for the body. I have often thought it would be useful to programmatically prohibit lead changes from new users, but there is no general support for that view that I am aware of, though it would save many experienced editors lots of time undoing edits to the lead by new users.

Think about moving this. Mathglot (talk) 05:36, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot Happy to move this and yes to technical assistance please G.J.ThomThom (talk) 12:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine § Best Practices for Teaching Students to Write Effective Lead Sections

Please add your comments and feedback there, not here (unless specifically relevant to ENB and not WP:MED). Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 17:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Group accounts created for Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/North Carolina State University/Engineering in the 21st Century - Section 002 (Fall 2024)

@Ian (Wiki Ed) and Helaine (Wiki Ed):

I was looking around at Offshore wind power in the United States and noticed that it appeared to have been edited by a classroom group account. Wikipedia's username policy prohibits the creation accounts with names that imply shared use, and our sockpuppetry policy prohibits the sharing of any account by multiple people. Looking more broadly at the course, the following usernames appear to be accounts in clear violation of the aforementioned policy:

Group 6 E102 2024 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
Group12e102 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
Group4E102 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
E102RealGroup11 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
E102Group7 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
E102Group3 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

I am a bit loath to block these accounts right before the course deadline of 3 December, so I won't at this moment. That being said, any administrator who encounters these accounts in the wild might block them on sight.

It's really common for professors to assign group work, and small group work has pedagogical value (as you recognize). But I do think that we might have a bit of a gap in training materials; the student policies training doesn't mention anything about shared accounts/username policy, and I don't really see this sort of thing explicitly highlighted in the new instructor orientation either (though, in both cases, it's possible I've missed something).

Do either of these trainings explicitly inform students or professors that they should not create accounts that are shared between multiple individuals? And, if not, would you be willing to add a module to them explaining this? I'd be happy to draft up a short paragraph for you if you'd like to create a module.

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a note, the companion section also has a similar issue, with accounts like E102Group5, E102GROUP6, E102group17, E102Group11, Raiuigroup20, 2024E102Group19, E102team1, and Team12E102F. I don't think this changes much substantially other than identifying that it isn't just one professor who has had this issue, but I'll include it for completeness's sake. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:24, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping @Red-tailed hawk. The message at sign-up for students says:

Hello! You’ve been invited to join [course title]. To join, you need to log in with a Wikipedia account. If you don’t have a Wikipedia account yet, sign up for one now. Your username can be as anonymous — or as personally identifying — as you wish. (Shared accounts are not allowed.)

I'm pretty sure there are other places where we tell students to be more private in their username selection, and tell instructors that shared accounts aren't allowed. But I'd have to talk to Helaine and Sage to figure out where specifically that is.

As far as the accounts go, it doesn't look like anyone in this course or the other one has edited in the last two weeks, so I'm hoping they are done. That said, there is often someone who decides they want to try to do the assignment at the last possible moment, but a block that forced them to get in touch with me and figure out what the cause it might not be a bad idea.

I was going to say it's better to wait, but I think I'll block these accounts now. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, the community has already stated at the information page that shared accounts should not be used; see WP:STUDENTUSER. Of course, this isn't the same thing as WikiEd training materials. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Having some trouble with a class

Hello,

I initially posted this to User talk:Deepfriedokra, who recommended that I come here. I am having some issues with students in this UMich class adding semi-sourced edits to LGBTQ+ media and Media portrayal of LGBTQ people and wanted to know if there was some way to escalate the situation if any more disruptive material is added to other articles.

I checked some more diffs of people in the class, and they are better than nothing, but still add a lot of biased, semi-cited material to the pages. Example diffs from other articles, found from Students -> random student -> article -> history:

JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 07:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's also a lot of unsourced editing going on here, and - sorry to be the bearer of bad news, @Mossbeach -- some of this gives off chatGPT vibes. -- asilvering (talk) 12:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks JuxtaposedJacob, Looks like the main problems are two students - Zoecosgrove and Michigan2020. If the class wasn't finished yesterday I'd definitely ask them to stop editing. Beyond that there are some WP:MEDRS issues that I need to follow up on. I'll get in touch with the instructor.

I agree that this edit feels like AI. I wish they were either drafting on-wiki or editing live, it's this kind of in-between stuff that always makes me fear the worst. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bluegrass music in Europe (wikiedu.org course)

Hi folks,

Linked course: Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music History I

Article: Bluegrass music in Europe

One of the article authors came into the IRC Live Help chat asking how this article could be published - they'd already (malformed) moved it from Sandbox to Mainspace, but I wasn't sure it quite met our standards (I wouldn't have accepted it through AfC) and so I draftified it and left a message on the author's Talk page.

The author unfortunately moved it back to mainspace without explanation soon after and the article has now been tagged with the essay-like maintenance template (one of my original concerns).

After realising it was made via WikiEdu, I don't really want to re-draftify it. Having never worked with edu programmes before, I'm not wholly sure what to do. Maybe it only needs a little cleanup and can stay in mainspace, but...

Pinging @Average Archtop Enjoyer (Based) (the author) and @TechnoSquirrel69 who tagged it. qcne (talk) 09:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another editor in the same class is responsible for Special:Diff/1262200485, which I've reverted. Pinging @Helaine (Wiki Ed) and @Sage (Wiki Ed), looks like this class needs some help. -- asilvering (talk) 11:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Qcne and @Asilvering. I've contacted the instructor to loop him in on those problems and offer help. If the student doesn't clean up the 'bluegrass in Europe' article soon, I'll plan to copyedit it next week; I think there's enough of a core to keep as an article, if the writing problems are fixed. Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Non-neutral AfC submission, "instructor is insisting on a Wikipedia page" as a template

I recently declined Draft:CUNYSPS PSY201 Sleep as reading more like an essay than an encyclopedia article, but 103.176.11.112 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) wrote the following on the talk page of Jamesmadison551 (talk · contribs):

I just need to make a Wikipedia page for my school project. My instructor is insisting on a Wikipedia page as it's template. If you can provide assistance regarding this, I would appreciate it.

I do not have experience regarding people creating articles for school projects, which is what brings me here. JJP_{Mas_ter} (she/they) 01:47, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sigh nearly 7 million articles and they have to get tasked with creating a new one. They need to get a new teacher. Primefac (talk) 12:29, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm not sure it's the instructor that's to blame, given the strong, strong LLM vibes on this submission. Students who pull out chatGPT to complete their assignments don't tend to be great at following instructions. -- asilvering (talk) 20:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My comment was more because I have seen so many profs over the years insisting that their students write a full article (leading to garbage like this because the student panics) when there are just so many stubs that could use improving instead. Primefac (talk) 20:39, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the benefits of working with us; instructors often want students to write a new article because it's easier to see what they've done, then, vs it can be challenging to understand a diff unless you're well-versed in wikicode. Wiki Education's Dashboard software has an authorship highlighting feature that shows instructors exactly what students did, so this helps alleviate that problem. More than 90% of our participant work on existing articles, and those that do create new articles, it's often biographies of underrepresented people, and we spend a fair amount of time on notability to head off obvious problems. Please do feel free to send any students to us; we're happy to help get their instructors in our program. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, JJPMaster! I left a note for the student too, hopefully they'll ask their instructor to get in touch with Wiki Education; we can help them design a better assignment that works for Wikipedia. I agree this one was not it! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse query from Italian university class

If the LIUC University is LIUC Università Carlo Cattaneo, a student has requested help at Wikipedia:Teahouse#Draft: May-Li Khoe. I know WikiEd may not be able to help, so I thought I'd at least notify any interested parties. Please respond there if possible, not here. Thank you, Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 21:54, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Ferdi2005: in case this is something Wikimedia Italia can help with. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No further action needed, just courtesy links to Wikipedia:Teahouse#Suggestions for Monte Zovetto page and #Necropolis of Amorosi from two more LIUC students. At this point, not much to be done except keeping an eye on the students; one of them intends to pass on messages on the course design from the Teahouse hosts to the instructor. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 04:35, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another LIUC query from a student here. qcne (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That one is #DRAFT PAGE UNIVERSITY PROJECT (all caps original). Also linking even more Teahouse questions, #How I can improve my page?. One before it, #How can i improve my page? (lowercase "i") implies the course is https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/LIUC_-_Universit%C3%A0_Cattaneo/Digital_Technology_(October_-_December,_2024). Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 19:36, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And another here. -- NotCharizard ^🗨 14:12, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sudden spate of userspace school essays with AI art

There is a discussion on the Administrators' noticeboard that is relevant to Wiki Ed. JJP_{Mas_ter} (she/they) 23:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disruptive, possibly automated edits to talk pages originating from this project.

Hi -- since late 2021, there has been an absolutely rampant problem with unconstructive edits made to talk pages, and several of them seem to originate with this program. Some relevant diffs can be seen in this list. This is a small sample I happen to have around -- I have been reverting them when possible, but unfortunately if they are not caught before the archive bot then they're stuck there forever thanks to this.

These edits often, but not always, follow a pattern and are thus easy to find. They are usually on pages related to school curriculum and usually they come from IPs. Their header is a subject area, e.g., "Math," and the text is something unconstructive, e.g., "English" or "Difine governance with Example." It's not quite the same issue as this, as the edits are far more nonsensical and fragmented, and lack even the marginal usefulness those had. Sometimes they seem to be exam questions or prompts, e.g., "Tick the correct answer".

I suspect that many of these originate with text-to-speech or LLMs given the date they started pouring in (GPT-3 released 2020). And I do mean pouring in, like from a couple dozen to thousands. (It's possible that this was still really common before 2021 and people just caught them already, but I doubt that because the pattern of undetected vandalism/test edits on talk pages is usually the opposite, i.e., the majority of unreverted vandalism/unconstructive edits to talk pages are from 2006-2010, with the exception of this stuff.)

Is there any way to stop this? Obviously we can't control people's behavior, but the pattern of these edits is so regular that it seems like something automated might be causing it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:55, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnomingstuff These don't look like the kinds of edits I see student editors making - if it was coming from them, I imagine there would be a mixture of logged-in and IP edits of this type. I just don't see student editors logging out specifically to make these kinds of edits. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:13, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense, thanks! It's a much broader problem than just school-related articles. A lot of them do seem to be pretty clearly related to class assignments though and/or are on pages with the "this page was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation" notice, so I just wanted to flag it just in case. (edit) This diff is a good example of what I mean, "today's lesson."

IP edits seem to be much more common than logged-in users although I do see them from logged-in accounts occasionally.

Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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