·         If you choose this option you will create a new or substantially revise an existing Wikipedia entry (which is NOT a term paper and does NOT use APA references) on an Information Technology topic. You will need to have the topic approved; please get approval no later than the end of Week 4. 

In addition to publishing (or attempting to do so) to Wikipedia you will need to submit a link to your sandbox and/or your entry to your professor. You are graded on what is in your Wikipedia sandbox and/or Wikipedia entry.

Also, you need to compose a short (around 500 words) personal essay reflecting on your experience with your chosen topic and the Wikipedia process, and relating it to an MIT Technology Review article about Wikipedia (see instructions below for the exact article).

Here is an example of a sandbox from a previous term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thegerf/Sandbox

Below are some thoughts from a past student about the assignment - from a thread discussing why the assignment is to do a Wikipedia entry and not a term paper:

While the ability to chart your own course and draw your own conclusion with a term paper may be appealing for gaining new insight into topics that pose more questions than answers (the origin of the universe or the existence of God, for example), I have yet to see a single term paper from any class I have ever taken that actually comes to a conclusion other than "And so, well-known concept/strategy/process/tool XYZ indeed is/isn't useful." That is, the conclusion is entirely superficial. Yes, you are able to pull together a lot of information and learn a lot about the concept/strategy/process/tool at hand (which is the whole point of the exercise), but at the end of the day you don't really say anything that hasn't already been said.

This is precisely why I liked the Wikipedia assignment: not only do you get to cut out the completely superfluous task of trying to make an obvious conclusion sound important, but you also get to put what you did gather and learn out for everyone else to see and build upon so your hard work doesn't disappear into a vacuum. This was especially critical for this particular topic (BI) because the breadth and depth of BI-related information on Wikipedia was pretty slim and in desperate need of improvement. Furthermore, I see the whole point of this assignment as not to try and come up with something amazing and new, but rather to consolidate the bajillion disparate and sometimes conflicting sources of information about these topics into one or more articles. A lot of research and a deep understanding of the topic is necessary to boil opinionated statements down into their basic core facts to establish a neutral point of view and to create structure from chaos. You may not be coming to a new conclusion, but you are producing a useful result that wasn't there (or wasn't well-done) before: a coherent article.

For me, truly new research comes in the form of thesis projects that consume entire years, not term papers. Maybe I have a skewed perception of this since I've never once been asked to actually discover something new as the result of a term paper, perhaps because my courses have always been more technical and scientific rather than philosophical and fuzzy, I don't know. As a result of doing this project, however, I feel that I learned more than I did before and gave somebody else an opportunity to learn as well. Maybe what I wrote will be corrected, maybe it will be expanded upon, maybe it will be reverted, who knows. But it's something that others can actually use in some way or another, rather than an important-sounding but inherently valueless conclusion to a term paper that will be forgotten as soon as the class is over.

Requested IT Articles on Wikipedia

A list of IT-related topics for which there are no existing Wikipedia entries. I'm not sure how often this list is updated, so do check first for a work in progress before getting attached to a topic.

You can also adopt incomplete or inaccurate Wikipedia entries and fix those. Interestingly enough, the Wikipedia entry on Data Visualization needs help:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_visualization - that's very relevant to CIS 628!

Wikipedia Entry Instructions

Following these steps should ensure the best possible outcome:

1.        Choose an Information Technology-related topic to create a Wikipedia article on, or find a Wikipedia article that is in dire need of revision. Email your professor for approval by the end of Week 4.

2.        Once you have chosen your topic and had it approved, you should write up a one page proposal, outlining important information about it, what points you will cover in your article, and a short list of resources. Share this with the class (Infographic/Wikipedia Project Step #2 Board) for peer feedback.

3.        Create your Wikipedia author account and prepare your entry sandbox. It's perfectly fine to use a pseudonym for your author name.

4.        In your sandbox, create an interesting, in-depth entry, written according to Wikipedia style requirements (which specify that this is NOT a term paper), and substantiated with Wikipedia-style (NOT APA-style) references about your chosen topic. Your entry must include at least one academic book or journal source, but will be better if you include more. You should also include a list of external links giving the reader more information on your subject, and link to your entry from other Wikipedia pages, so your entry is not an orphan (you edit someone else's article to link to your own).

5.        Upload your entry to Wikipedia. NOTE: Wikipedia often has a backlog of new submissions waiting for approval. Acceptance by Wikipedia is NOT a requirement for this assignment. 

6.        Submit a link to your Wikipedia sandbox and/or your Wikipedia entry through the submission link in this folder - you are graded on what is in your Wikipedia sandbox and/or Wikipedia entry.

7.        Prepare a short (around 500 words) personal essay reflecting on your experience with your chosen topic and the Wikipedia process, and relating it to this article about Wikipedia: "The Decline of Wikipedia" by Tom Simonite for MIT Technology Review, October 2013, http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/

8.        During the last week of class everyone will give feedback on each other's final Wikipedia entries/sandboxes.

Writing for Wikipedia

Writing for Wikipedia is very different from writing an essay, and you need to fit in with the proper format. Make sure you familiarize yourself with encyclopedia-type writing before you begin:

1.        Wikipedia:Your first article, which gives an overview and some dos and don'ts.

2.        Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, which summarizes what Wikipedia is, and what it is not;

3.        Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which describes Wikipedia's core approach to neutral, unbiased article-writing;

4.        Wikipedia:No original research, which explains what is, and is not, valid encyclopedic information;

5.        Wikipedia:Verifiability, which explains what counts as a verifiable source and how a source can be verified;

6.        Wikipedia:Citing sources, which describes what kinds of sources should be cited and the manner of doing so;

7.        Wikipedia:Article size, which discusses Wikipedia article size and length; and

8.        Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which offers a style guide.