Wikiversity:Featured

About featured content

What is featured content?

Featured content is considered, for a variety of reasons, to present Wikiversity at its best to the general public. Featured content may show exemplary course design, a novel, usable and fully functioning approach to wiki-based education, or educational resources that have simply reached a high state of completion or had very large amounts of work done on them.

How is featured content displayed to the public?

There are a number of ways featured content is used.

Featured content on Wikiversity is regularly rotated in the "today's featured project" on the main page.
A wider range of material from this page, including content which is proposed-for but not-yet featured, is included in a special pseudo-random-page system accessed from the left-hand navigation panel on every page of Wikiversity - see Random project.
Many portals also have featured content. This page can be used for finding resources which are suitable for featuring on specific portals. Portals tend to set the bar for featured content somewhat lower, so portals may also feature content not listed here.

An important difference between featured content on Wikiversity and featured content on much larger projects is that on Wikiversity, featured content is rotated. On very large projects, featured content is selected by special interest groups several weeks or months in advance, and is always new. On Wikiversity, to save time, and as a result of the lower level of content production, featured content is rotated on a daily basis. Featured content therefore reappears on the main page at regular intervals.

Who selects featured content?

Selecting and maintaining a featured content system requires a time-consuming long-term commitment and a wide knowledge of Wikiversity content. Few people have ever been prepared to invest time in this. On larger projects, featured content is usually selected by democratic vote. However democratic systems only work when there is a large enough body of well-informed participants in a featured content project. The Wikiversity system is unfortunately rather autocratic at the current time, but any user can propose content (just add it below) and comment on other suggestions. Please inform yourself widely about featured content before commenting if you can.

There is no formal system of criteria at the current time, but you can discuss proposals for criteria on the talk page. On the whole, it would be desirable if featured content could represent as many different subjects and educational levels as possible.

Other ways of drawing attention to educational resources

The following ideas have been suggested at some time or other:

Events
- Add an "events" entry to the left-hand navigation panel, which links to an events page, which in turn lists upcoming events (e.g. meetings, synchronous discussions). This would require someone prepared to regularly maintain the page.
- Notify events on Mediawiki:sitenotice (requires custodian) or in the main page news box (registered users).
Projects and resources in need of development
- These are "development drives". A development drives page could be created and maintained, which randomly rotates project links in the "development" box on the main page. This would require someone prepared to regularly maintain the page.
Projects and resources in need of participants
- This idea relates to educational resources which are "ready" for the public, but which may have very little content because the content is supposed to come from active community participation. These projects might be candidates for featured status once a community has created a substantial body of content, but at the current time these resources are more sketches or skeletons of ideas for participatory learning. The idea of drawing attention to these is to attract participants who will "develop" the resource, but "development" here is not meant in the usual sense of "development" (as in "development drive") because development (production) and use (consumption) merge. A "needs-participants" page could be created and maintained, which randomly rotates project links in the "community" box on the main page. This would require someone prepared to regularly maintain the page.
- One could also classify a participation drive as an "event"

Current featured content

Category:Featured resources

Name	Main coordinator(s)	Subject	Level	Size	Notes
Observational astronomy	User:Mu301	Astronomy	Secondary, tertiary	1	Project participants access public astronomy databases and explore outer space.
Bloom clock project	User:SB_Johnny	Biology, horticulture	Research, universal	858	Participants record bloom times of wildflowers and other plants; 858 plants and 144 keys.
Teaching and Learning Online	Various	eLearning, information technology	Secondary, tertiary		This is a collection of originally unconnected resources revolving around the topic of teaching and learning online. Some of the resources are highly developed - others hardly at all. Plenty of opportunity for enhancement. 22 resources, some of which have many pages and are featured in their own right; others are smaller and some are currently just a single page. Authors include User:Teemu, User:Cormaggio and User:Leighblackall.
Historical Introduction to Philosophy	User:MaryCordova	philosophy	Tertiary, (secondary)	21	"material generated by participants in a course outside of Wikiversity"
Learning the basics of Filmmaking	User:Robert Elliott	film, media	Secondary, tertiary	60+	Nicely designed course on writing scripts, storyboards, and other aspects of narrative Filmmaking; difficult to tell how large this project is.
Technical writing	User:TWFred	writing	non-formal, vocational	18	very well developed resources
Web Design	User:Michaelnelson	information technology	universal	0	Launched in 2005; has managed to encourage other contributors to come in from the wild, but is still mainly the original scrappy but voluminous framework. Needs work on aesthetics and structure. Some pages need completing. Modules missing. Great opportunity for improving this.
Economic Classroom Experiments	User:FeeleTim, User:Toddkaplan, User:Dieter	economics	tertiary, secondary	21	The coordinators and main contributors are staff at the University of Exeter and won a national teaching award for work documented in these pages.[1]
Topic:Breton	User:Luzmael, User:AC'hM.	languages	tertiary, non-formal	69	nice design; well-developed
Media literacy	Renee Hobbs	information technology, media	tertiary, secondary	7	a collaborative project between graduate students working under Renee Hobbs
Topic:Instructional Design	User:Phonebein	Education, eLearning	Tertiary	c.130	Collaborative development emerging from real world courses. Ongoing. Probably graduate students working on this. Created under the aegis of Dr Peter Honebein of Indiana University.
Nonlinear finite elements	User:Banerjee	Mechanical engineering	Tertiary	150-200 (300-350)	Individually developed course material, probably in connection with real world courses. The higher page count in brackets refers to the total number of pages if closely associated projects by the same user are included.
Electric Circuit Analysis	User:Thuvack	Electrical engineering	Secondary, tertiary	12	Elaborately designed.
Trade Finance	User:MSUglobal	Economics	Tertiary	240	Developed as part of Michigan State University's first Open CourseWare and simultaneously published on Wikiversity by the creators. An example of government grant money being used directly for the creation of open educational resources.
Assistant teacher course	User:Fasten	Education	Secondary	100	Course materials for training secondary school pupils to become involved in the teaching process as assistant to their teachers, following the principle that the best way to learn something is to teach it.
Introduction to Swedish	User:Mats	Languages	Universal	17
Introduction to Computers	User:Areil123	Information technology	Universal	21	Originally run as a course at a real-world college. The content is almost entirely created by a large number of User:Areil123's students. Uses a lot of images and many podcasts prepared by the students. Genuinely very introductory. Some of the later lessons in this resource need better wikifying and dividing into subpages.
Spanish 1	User:Allioshida	Languages	Universal	29	A good solid start to Wikiversity's Spanish language training. Should provide inspiration and/or frameworks for others when creating more Spanish courses.
Motivation and emotion	User:Jtneill	Psychology	Tertiary	178	Course materials for an undergraduate psychology course about motivation and emotion. Includes lectures and tutorials plus students have contributed over a 1000 pages about specific motivation and emotion topics.

Reference: Archive of discussions of successful featured content

Tour: Featured content

Admin: Template:Featured Content/Nav, Template:FOTD, Template:FOTD/CALC, Template:cool, Template:hot

Number of pages in featured resources: c. 1500-1600 (about 17%-18% of Wikiversity content)

Number of featured resources: 18

Average size of featured resources: 83-88 pages

Shortlisted

This is an administrative section. It contains content which will shortly be added to featured content. The content listed here is currently being cleaned up and checked prior to featuring. Please feel welcome to help with the polishing process. When material here has been processed, it is archived at Archive of discussions of successful featured content.

New proposals for featured content

If you propose something, please give a very brief reason/description (max 1 line) and sign your name. Thanks!
Others: please add your comments below the proposal and sign your name too. Thanks!

Please help identify well developed or complete science resources to feature during Wikiversity:Year of Science 2016. --mikeu ^talk 20:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

IT Fundamentals

IT Fundamentals is an excellent resource and very useful. --mikeu ^talk 23:11, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Review of IT Fundamentals:

The course is aimed at the IT Fundamentals certification. At the outset IT is not a specialty. My initial impression from looking at the course materials starting at Wikiversity is that they are smart, smooth, and well-presented. There are 15 lessons. If there are any weaknesses with the course, I would expect them to be with a dependency on Wikipedia. Sampling, I looked at

1. Hardware and chose something I haven't heard of or read before: from Wikipedia "In computing, a computer bus operating with double data rate (DDR) transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal.[1][page needed] This is also known as double pumped, dual-pumped, and double transition." From Google scholar I found using "double date rate" and "the rising and falling edges of the clock signal": "For example, a double date rate (DDR) technique may be used, in which both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal are used to latch data."^[1] This informs me that on the certification exam something analogous, similar, or exactly phrased would be accepted as the correct answer to "What is DDR?"

4. Virtualization: from Wikipedia on Cloud computing "SureCloud computing, also on-demand computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand." From Google scholar I found using "cloud computing" and "shared processing resources and data": "Cloud computing, also on-demand computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand."^[2] The statement is referenced [25][24] to [R. Meireles, M. Boban, P. Steenkiste, O. Tonguz, and J. Barros, “Experimental study on the impact of vehicular obstructions in vanets,” in Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC), 2010 IEEE, pp. 338–345, IEEE, 2010.] and [Md Whaiduzzaman, Mehdi Sookhak , Abdullah Gani, Rajkumar Buyya, “A survey on vehicular cloud computing” , Journal of Network and Computer Applications.] respectively. Again, I would expect this answer would be successful on the certification exam.

9. Commands and Scripting: from Wikipedia "Path (computing)": "A path, the general form of the name of a file or directory, specifies a unique location in a file system." I found on Google Scholar using "specifies a unique location in a file system" and "path": "A “file path” specifies a unique location in a file system. A path points to a file system location by following the directory tree hierarchy expressed in a string of characters in which path components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory."^[3]

12. Security: from Wikipedia "Hardening (computing)": "In computing, hardening is usually the process of securing a system by reducing its surface of vulnerability, which is larger when a system performs more functions; in principle a single-function system is more secure than a multipurpose one." Using "reducing its surface of vulnerability" and "hardening" on Google Scholar I found "Operating system hardening is the process of securing an operating system by reducing its surface of vulnerability."^[4]

While this is by no means a thorough examination of the merits of the course and its potential to students, it does demonstrate that the creator has double checked on Wikipedia to make sure the correct and necessary information is being conveyed to students through perhaps the weakest link. Although the course is relatively new to Wikiversity, I endorse its being rated as a Featured resource. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:16, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

↑ S Qawami, S Eilert (2011). "Writing to non-volatile memory during a volatile memory refresh cycle". US Patent (7,944,764). https://www.google.com/patents/US7944764. Retrieved 2016-04-20.
↑ MP Sharma, A Hirwe (March 2016). "Implementation in Vehicular Communication with Various Approaches & Techniques". International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Applied Science (IJSEAS) (ijseas.com) 2 (3). http://ijseas.com/volume2/v2i3/ijseas20160350.pdf. Retrieved 2016-04-20.
↑ Yoav Shalom Namir (7 August 2014, priority date 27 November 2012). "Method and system for archiving a document". US Patent Application 14 (090,416). https://www.google.com/patents/US20140222763. Retrieved 2016-04-20.
↑ Jérôme Arnaud and Jean-Michel Rey (10 June 2013). How can cybersecurity be enhanced in existing substations minimizing impact on the automation and control system, In: Electricity Distribution. IET. pp. 1-4. doi:10.1049/cp.2013.0853. ISBN 978-1-84919-732-8. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6683456. Retrieved 2016-04-20.

Motivation and emotion

Motivation and emotion is one of the longest run and most developed projects on wikiversity. Very high quality. --mikeu ^talk 23:07, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and added Motivation and emotion as a featured course: Featured_content/20 and bumped the FOTD counter: Template:FOTD/CALC. I've tried adding it the featured content tour, but isn't showing: Template:Featured Content/Nav. Seems to be something to with being at the end? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:54, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Effective defense and ISIL

Effective defense and ISIL is a quality resource that thoroughly cites the sources used to present a neutral point of view on a topic currently in the news. --mikeu ^talk 20:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Crafting Freedom Project

The Crafting Freedom Project is an excellent resource in the public humanities. It tells the stories of how historic events have an impact on the everyday lives of people who are caught up in events beyond their control. --mikeu ^talk 21:10, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Egyptian Verbal System (and its Vocalization)

Egyptian Verbal System (and its Vocalization) is one of the more fascinating projects that I've stumbled upon. It is surely a topic of rather idiosyncratic interest, but it is very well done. Resources on this subject would be difficult to find elsewhere. --mikeu ^talk 22:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Places to go hunting for featured content

Category:Completed resources
Completed courses list
Google search of wikiversity.org
Special:MostRevisions (NB: this only has data up to September 2007, so of limited current use).
Most edited pages (possibly far more out of date even than the above).
Wikiversity:Participants - some of the most active participants are engaged in content development, so keep an eye on what they are producing.

Most desired content

This section lists content which is most strongly desired by Wikiversity participants, but which falls far short of featured status. If you wish to create content which quickly becomes featured, then this is a good place to look for projects to work on.

French stream

French. Compare French stream (people who have explicitly stated a desire to learn French) and Category:French. This is a case where demand clearly outstrips supply. Just by providing a coherent set of French learning language resources, we would cater for visitors far better. --McCormack 09:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish

Spanish. Ditto. Compare Spanish/Registration with Spanish. --McCormack 09:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Its my dream to find a wiki way to help in the area:(--Juan 09:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Content which was proposed and rejected

Items placed here are periodically archived at /Archive/Delisted.

Related resources

Educational Media Awareness Campaign - includes the Picture of The Day system.

[Qawami-1] S Qawami, S Eilert (2011). "Writing to non-volatile memory during a volatile memory refresh cycle". US Patent (7,944,764). https://www.google.com/patents/US7944764. Retrieved 2016-04-20.

[Sharma-2] MP Sharma, A Hirwe (March 2016). "Implementation in Vehicular Communication with Various Approaches & Techniques". International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Applied Science (IJSEAS) (ijseas.com) 2 (3). http://ijseas.com/volume2/v2i3/ijseas20160350.pdf. Retrieved 2016-04-20.

[Namir-3] Yoav Shalom Namir (7 August 2014, priority date 27 November 2012). "Method and system for archiving a document". US Patent Application 14 (090,416). https://www.google.com/patents/US20140222763. Retrieved 2016-04-20.

[Arnaud-4] Jérôme Arnaud and Jean-Michel Rey (10 June 2013). How can cybersecurity be enhanced in existing substations minimizing impact on the automation and control system, In: Electricity Distribution. IET. pp. 1-4. doi:10.1049/cp.2013.0853. ISBN 978-1-84919-732-8. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6683456. Retrieved 2016-04-20.

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