Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive 25#Teahouse query from Italian university class

Over the last few weeks, I've noticed a bunch of what appeared to be student editors working on fish-related articles. I finally asked one of them, and apparently this is a fairly large UC Davis class. I'll note that they seem to be doing good work (as far as I can tell -- I don't know much about fish species), but it doesn't appear that this class is running in an official way. :Jay8g [V•T•E] 06:00, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

:Thanks so much, {{u|Jay8g}}! I left a note for the student on their talk page encouraging them ask their instructor to connect with us. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

It looks like students in [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Kennesaw_State_University/Exercise_Physiology_in_Aging,_ES4300-01_(Fall_2024) this] course are publishing their individual responses to (seemingly) the same writing prompt at pregnancy#exercise, resulting in basically quadruplicated content of wildly varying quality. The students should also be instructed not to add descriptions of primary research studies as a general rule (and yes I realize it's a little more nuanced for experienced MEDRS editors). JoelleJay (talk) 01:08, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

:{{u|JoelleJay}} I've emailed the instructor and asked them to intervene with these students. Thanks for bringing it up. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:33, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

::Thank you! JoelleJay (talk) 01:13, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I have been perusing WP:Translation, which contains the section {{slink|WP:Translation|Classroom collaborations|nopage=yes}}, and which links Wikipedia:Student assignments (without mentioning Wiki Ed) as a good way to set up a classroom translation project. Are there translation projects extant among Wiki Ed classes, and have there been in the past? If so, can you provide a few links? Mathglot (talk) 00:24, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

:Hi {{u|Mathglot}}, we do support a couple of them each term, but it's not very popular, unfortunately. I wish there were more translation classes! [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Michigan/Advanced_Portuguese_Conversation_and_Composition_(spring_2024)/home Here's one that translated to Portuguese from the spring], and [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Western_Michigan_University_School_of_Medicine/MEDU_9320-WikiProject_Medical_Translation-Spanish_(September_9,_2024)/home here's an example from this fall of a small med school elective that focused on Spanish translation]. We also offer a [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/instructors/designing-a-translation-assignment training module] specifically for instructors on designing a translation assignment. Hope this helps! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:49, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

:: Yes, it does, thank you! If you (or anyone) knows of other translation projects, past, present (or future), please do link them here. In the meantime, I was planning on adding a link to Wiki Ed from the WP:Translation page which landing page do you think it should link to? Thanks again, Mathglot (talk) 01:59, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

:::{{reply|Mathglot}} Thanks! Probably [https://teach.wikiedu.org teach.wikiedu.org] would be the best, but you can also link to m:Wiki Education Foundation if you want to keep it on-wiki. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:56, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

:::: LiAnna, I've updated section {{slink|WP:Translation#Classroom collaborations}}, please have a look. I felt I had to mention the US/Canada-only coverage and the into-English-only translation direction if only to forestall pointless inquiries. (Am I correct about that? Do you have any translation projects going into French, say, in Quebec, or into Spanish in the US, and would you accept such a Wiki Ed class project if it were proposed in an inquiry?)

:::: Inevitably, some viewers are going to have questions about class projects elsewhere, or translations into other languages, and I would like to add a third paragraph to the section about that, but I don't know what to say about it. I'm sure you've dealt with those questions a thousand times before; do you think you could edit that section directly and address those questions, or else point me to where I can find what to say about those two questions? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

:::::Looks great! Thanks! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:47, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

:::::: Can we say something about those two issues? Mathglot (talk) 19:12, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

:::::::In terms of non-U.S. and Canada, I don't have a particularly good answer; maybe reach out to your local Wikimedia affiliate (m:Wikimedia movement affiliates)? I know most of the people doing education work globally so I usually individually connect people to someone who can help in their region, but that's not an easy "general guidance" answer. For non-English in the U.S. and Canada, they should still reach out to us and we'll try to guide them to our best practices. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:37, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#New seemingly-related group of good-faith but deleterious West African copyeditors. Remsense ‥ 论 06:33, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the recent edit history on Women's Rights Pioneers Monument might be some kind of education project. Many of the editors also edited Wikipedia:Sandbox in the same one-hour period precisely one week ago. jlwoodwa (talk) 20:49, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

:If you find out what class they are from, let me know! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

:I believe it's the same group of students that have been editing The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives for an English class, though I'm not sure from which school. One left me the most recent message on my talk page. Mellamelina (talk) 20:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

There appears to be a student assignment to discuss the reliability of a Korean-language source at WP:Reliable Sources/Noticeboard. An example of such a thread is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is 'hankookilbo(한국일보)' a reliable_press? and has some discussion about the course itself. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:01, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

:Piotr has been running assignments on Wikipedia longer than Wiki Education has existed, probably longer than this noticeboard has. I'd agree with what you said there, except that I think "we" (the predecessors of Wiki Education) learned a lot about the Wikipedia assignment from Piotr, back in the old days. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:58, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Alicia Bjarnason was created by students from [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Calgary/Earth_209_-_Introduction_to_Geology_(Fall_2024)/articles/edited? Earth 209] and is a hopelessly promotional article (though they have toned it down slightly since I tagged it, after initially edit-warring to remove the tag). I looked through other edits from the class and the same problem happened at Wendy Todd, Judi Wakhungu (though to a lesser extent), Karen Hudson-Edwards, Ethel Shakespear, and Karen Hudson-Edwards -- pretty much every article the class was involved with. This seems to be a systemic problem with student projects (almost every class project I've run across has had at least some students adding promo/puffery), and there's a clear need for much better training and/or proactive monitoring to make sure student editors are following WP:NOTPROMO and WP:NPOV -- I know I've reported several very similar problems here, and there are others that I haven't bothered to report. :Jay8g [V•T•E] 19:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

:I wonder if we should provide clearer options to editors dealing with student assignments. It's very frequent that student editors come onwiki, (usually unknowingly) go against a policy or guideline, and end up with a dispute.

:Currently, "Communicating with Others on Wikipedia" assumes that editors will give specific feedback to the student on what to change.[https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students/communicating-with-others/edit-summary-example] However, that's more difficult for an article like Alicia Bjarnason where the issues aren't simply "change x to y", or when multiple students in a course have an issue with promotional phrasing.

:The status quo appears to be "write something to Wiki Ed on the Education Noticeboard and hope they discuss it with the instructor", but is there a better way? Perhaps editors should have a more structured way to give feedback on courses akin to course evaluations. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:30, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

::{{re|Chess}} It's a lot to ask of editors. I suppose it might not hurt to create "tips for responding to student editors", but some people would definitely respond with "I'm not here to be your free TA" (and they wouldn't be wrong).

::The onus on us to do a better job in terms of building better systems and guardrails. We are experimenting, there are a lot of changes I'd love to try if I had more time, but I'm always interested in other ideas. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

:::This follows quite closely from what Ian just said, but WP:NOTTA does contain advice of this sort. But for the more specific issue of evaluating courses, that strikes me as something potentially useful. For now, it would seem like the main option is for editors, and not just limited to WikiEd people, to leave comments on the instructor's talk page. Of course, the instructor might respond with something like "it's not my professional responsibility to care what some random person on Wikipedia thinks", but once they have decided to make use of us as a teaching tool for their class, that makes them responsible to our policies, whether they like it or not – and that leads back to this noticeboard, if not ANI. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

:::{{re|Ian (Wiki Ed)}} It's beneficial to distinguish between informal and formal advice. Informal advice is me suggesting a course should teach students about promotional language or venting to you about how a course is being run. Formal advice is me setting specific expectations because I'm unhappy with a course's impact on-wiki. When I give informal advice, I might want Wiki Education to present that feedback in a non-confrontational way. When I give formal advice, I'm looking for clear commitments that certain behaviour won't happen again.

:::I would give informal advice to other editors on their user talk pages and give formal advice at ANI. The education noticeboard tries to deal with informal and formal advice in one place and I don't think that's working. The structure of a noticeboard incentivizes formal advice, but privately bringing up concerns to the professor is a response one would take for informal advice. This mismatch might be why editors are feeling unheard. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

:{{re|Jay8g}} I wouldn't say it's a systemic problems with student work (it's a small portion of the ~4,000 articles edited this term) but yes, there's too much promotional language here. Creating bios is hard for new editors because they are writing about people they feel are cool or interesting (just look at the torrent of stuff on AFC or Cat:CSD). We depend on our training and reminders from instructors to counter this urge. And after you've done it for many years like this professor has, sometimes a reminder is needed. I will email the professor today. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

{{yo|Ian (Wiki Ed)|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:

• {{checkuser|Group 6 E102 2024}}
• {{checkuser|Group12e102}}
• {{checkuser|Group4E102}}
• {{checkuser|E102RealGroup11}}
• {{checkuser|E102Group7}}
• {{checkuser|E102Group3}}

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 [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/instructors/new-instructor-orientation/create-or-expand-an-article you recognize]). But I do think that we might have a bit of a gap in training materials; the [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students/wikipedia-essentials 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 [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/instructors/new-instructor-orientation/ 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)

:As a note, the companion section also has a similar issue, with accounts like {{no ping|E102Group5}}, {{no ping|E102GROUP6}}, {{no ping|E102group17}}, {{no ping|E102Group11}}, {{no ping|Raiuigroup20}}, {{no ping|2024E102Group19}}, {{no ping|E102team1}}, and {{no ping|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)

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

::{{tq|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 [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/North_Carolina_State_University/Engineering_in_the_21st_Century_-_Section_002_(Fall_2024)/activity/recent this course] or [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/North_Carolina_State_University/Engineering_in_the_21st_Century_Section_1_(Fall)/activity/recent 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)

:::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)

Hello,

I initially posted this to User talk:Deepfriedokra, who recommended that I come here.

I am having some issues with students in [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Michigan/LGBTQ_Reproductive_Health_(Fall_2024)| 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:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Foster_care&diff=1261524664&oldid=1255402058
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transgender_pregnancy&diff=1261160646&oldid=1248453970

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

: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)

::Thanks {{u|JuxtaposedJacob}}, Looks like the main problems are two students - {{noping|Zoecosgrove}} and {{noping|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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LGBTQ%2B_media&diff=prev&oldid=1261061732 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)

Hi folks,

Linked course: [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/East_Tennessee_State_University/Bluegrass,_Old-Time,_and_Roots_Music_History_I_(Fall_2024) 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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bluegrass_music_in_Europe&oldid=1262151652 draftified it] and left a message on the author's Talk page.

The author unfortunately [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bluegrass_music_in_Europe&oldid=1262152634 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)

: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)

::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)

I recently declined Draft:CUNYSPS PSY201 Sleep as reading more like an essay than an encyclopedia article, but {{IP|103.176.11.112}} wrote the following on the talk page of {{user|Jamesmadison551}}:

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_Master (she/they) 01:47, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

: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)

::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)

:::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)

::::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)

:Thanks, {{u|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)

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)

:Pinging {{ping|Ferdi2005}} in case this is something Wikimedia Italia can help with. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

: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)

:[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Teahouse&oldid=1264122285 Another LIUC query from a student here]. qcne (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

::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)

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

There is a discussion on the Administrators' noticeboard that is relevant to Wiki Ed. JJP_Master (she/they) 23:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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)

:@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)

::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)

Heads up:

Had a user come into #wikipedia-en-help regarding their draft at Draft:Capucinne_Jewelry. They confirmed they weren't a paid editor (despite making the declaration - they just thought they had to do that after receiving the warning) and have been tasked by their professor to write articles on Slovenian e-commerce companies:

{{Blockquote|I'm student and I have to prepare article for a small company in slovenia as university project. It's kind of an pre examp project. My professor said that we need to write an article for some ecommerce company from slovenia, just so he can see what kind of research we can do. And he will grade us on this.}}

Advised the user to tell their professor to look at Wikiedu. qcne (talk) 14:44, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I've stumbled across User:Panagiotab, who says they are a university student editing as part of a course, but they do not have a WikiED template. What is the best way to address this? ForsythiaJo (talk) 23:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:Since they're in the Netherlands, encourage them to reach out to Wikimedia Nederland for support. [https://www.wikimedia.nl/samenwerken/hoger-onderwijs/ Here's their education program page]. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:39, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

I was looking for some more musicians and bands to possibly do articles on and came across Draft:Post Sex Nachos, which I found to be in a very bad state with a lot of unsourced info. I subsequently improved the draft and I think it looks much better now. Looking at the contribs of some of the users who previously edited the article led me to the user page User:Grey Wanderer/Missouri Musicians Project (Fall 2024), which states that it is affiliated with a class at the University of Missouri. I didn't see any WikiEd-related tags on the users involved, which makes me think that this was not approved by WikiEd. The class is over now, but I wanted to put it here in case it repeats next fall. :User:Wizzito | :User talk:Wizzito 15:58, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:Also the WikiEd team can probably reach out to {{user|Grey Wanderer}} better than I possibly could (also tagging them to this discussion for posterity reasons) :User:Wizzito | :User talk:Wizzito 15:59, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Based on section {{slink|User talk:Brianda (Wiki Ed)|Help Translating Article|nopage=yes}} at Brianda's Talk page, although the student user's question isn't very clear, it sounds like they are asking about translating an article into Spanish. Does Wiki Ed have some projects at non-English Wikipedia, and if so, which one(s)? Mathglot (talk) 00:07, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

: Okay, just found this sandbox with Spanish content, so I guess the answer is yes, that is what they want to do. It's clearly not suitable for en-wiki: wrong language, plus article already exists. Mathglot (talk) 00:12, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

::@Mathglot - in a few specialised cases we do (but not generally). If we do, the Dashboard can set the home wiki to es.wiki (or whichever other one it is). Sometimes a single student in a class wants to work on another language, and that is where confusion like this tends to occur. If we know, we can point them in the right direction, but if we're not aware, and the Dashboard for the course is set to en.wiki, it'll directing them to draft their work here. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

::: Ian, that makes sense, especially if most other students in the course are working in English. I've welcomed Samantha at her Spanish Talk page so she doesn't feel like she's been tossed alone into an arena even more unfamiliar than English Wikipedia with with no guidance and no support, but it would be good to have a page here for students working in Spanish (or any language), and a landing page on Spanish Wikipedia for Wikipedia education with some basic info about it and linking back here. Do we have a guidance or help page somewhere, either aimed at students or just generally about how this is supposed to work, as far as cross-wiki logistics, sandbox locations, procedures, and so on? For example, I would recommend that at some point, her sandbox should be copied to her es-wiki sandbox and tested there, as the environment is completely different, rather than merge her content directly into a Spanish article. Also, templates that work here (like {{tl|cite web}} may or may not work there, depending on how es-wiki functions.

::: Regarding her work specifically, it looks like she is preparing Spanish content in her sandbox about intercollegiate sports at CSU LA, destined to be added to the Spanish article :es:Cal State Los Angeles Golden Eagles which does not yet cover that subtopic, so her sandbox content looks like a valid addition to the Spanish article. She seems very well prepared, as she already has 13 wikilinks in her sandbox draft correctly pointing to articles on es-wiki using interlanguage links. A few links are local (English) only, like the piped tenis femenino, which currently points to English Wikipedia women's tennis as the article doesn't exist in Spanish; these should be converted to use the {{tl|interlanguage link}} template. Using {{tlc|ill}} will work well for this purpose, as it redirects correctly both here and there. (Since the article exists already at en-wiki, she should also add {{tlc|bots|deny{{=}}Cewbot}} to her sandbox to prevent the bot from undoing the {{tl|ill}} templates while hosted here; this is but one of the many minutiae that should be covered in a Wiki Ed help page about cross-wiki development.)

::: It is a much higher degree of difficulty to prepare material here for addition at a foreign Wikipedia, but she seems to be doing extremely well so far, and just needs the right kind of support. I hope we can provide it. Mathglot (talk) 18:36, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

:::: Well, I take back what I said above about using {{tl|ill}} at es-wiki. I just had another look at :es:Plantilla:Enlace interlingüístico, their equivalent of {{tl|interlanguage link}}, and the template exists and does the same thing as ours, however its use is forbidden in mainspace there. Just one more thing to add, to that (forthcoming?) help or guidance page for students writing for Spanish Wikipedia. Mathglot (talk) 19:00, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Why are all of the 20+ students in this CSU course assigned the same article to edit? (The section above is about an unrelated topic, but happens to concern a student in this same course.) Mathglot (talk) 00:17, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

:This makes no sense to me, and I suspect there's some confusion about how to assign themselves articles using the Dashboard. I'm going to let {{u|Brianda (Wiki Ed)}} know so they can follow up with the class and try to sort out the confusion. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:06, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

::@Mathglot, I reached out to the instructor to figure out what's the aim of the assignment, and waiting to hear back from them to sort this out. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:26, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

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)

:@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)

::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)

:::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)

: 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 {{tl|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)

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

{{discussion moved to|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Best Practices for Teaching Students to Write Effective Lead Sections}}

: {{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1746380836}} 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)

There are a lot of new editors creating and submitting drafts related to One health (Draft:Zoonotic Foodborne Diseases, Draft:Surfing and Ocean Pollution, Draft:Leptospirosis in Urban Environments: A One Health Approach, Draft:Zoonotic Diseases and Mental Health), and shoehorning One health into various articles even when the sources don't mention it or it isn't relevant (e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malaria&diff=prev&oldid=1280119183], [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argentine_hemorrhagic_fever&diff=prev&oldid=1281248360], [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leptospirosis&diff=next&oldid=1282028200]). The submitted drafts are always declined. I haven't completely reviewed the edits to actual articles, and some of the added content unrelated to One health is alright, but some of them appear to be AI-generated and/or not very relevant, e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emerging_infectious_disease&diff=prev&oldid=1280902477], this draft. Some drafts were also created last October (e.g. Draft:Community-Based "One Health" Surveillance for Avian Influenza), so it appears the assignment is going on for multiple terms.

I haven't confirmed that this is a class of student editors but it looks very likely based on the edits. I also found [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Auburn_University_College_of_Forestry,_Wildlife_and_Environment/One_Health_Connections_(Spring_2025)/ this WikiEdu class], "One Health Connections", that looks very similar but mostly abandoned. Could someone confirm whether this is the same class, and if so, discuss with the instructor about these issues with student editing? Helpful Raccoon (talk) 04:06, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

:@Helpful Raccoon We heard back from the instructor, and they're not related to the class. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:00, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

::@Ian (Wiki Ed) Thank you! I guess there's not much we can do other than ask the students to have their instructor contact WikiEdu. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 20:16, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

:::It looks like I found two IPs affiliated with these drafts: one geolocates to Brooklyn, NY and the other geolocates to Rensselaer, New York, outside of Albany. I don't know if that would help any to find the institution (turns out RPI isn't in Rensselaer, but that may be the institution in question) wizzito | say hello! 08:04, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::::I found someone at RPI who might fit the bill of a possible instructor. He's a professor who has a.) studied "one health" and b.) started teaching around the timeframe that these drafts were first submitted. Not sure I can share his name. wizzito | say hello! 08:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{ping|Wizzito}} Thanks! Are you comfortable sharing the name via email? We can try to reach out to them and get them into our support system, so they hopefully have a better outcome if they teach again. You can use Special:EmailUser/LiAnna_(Wiki_Ed) or just reach out to contact{{@}}wikiedu.org. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::I'm not sure, though, as the professor seems to teach biomedical engineering, and the content doesn't seem like stuff that would come out of an engineering class. One clue might be the username of one of the users: MDMPHkid. I'm guessing this might be some kind of a class for a joint medical and public health degree program. We might need to contact some med schools in NY state, including:

::::::* Albany Medical College and University at Albany: https://www.amc.edu/education/md-program/about-md/joint-degree-programs-md/

::::::* New York Medical College: https://www.nymc.edu/som/education/md/mdmph/

::::::* Columbia University: https://www.vagelos.columbia.edu/education/academic-programs/md-dual-degrees-and-special-programs/md-mph

::::::* New York University: https://publichealth.nyu.edu/master-public-health/dual-degrees/medicine

::::::* Icahn School of Medicine: https://icahn.mssm.edu/education/public-health/md-mph

::::::* SUNY Downstate: https://www.downstate.edu/education-training/college-of-medicine/programs/md-mph.html wizzito | say hello! 22:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::If this is a med school assignment, what a shame that even our future doctors are cheating with ChatGPT... wizzito | say hello! 22:38, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I found that at least some of the drafts were created at St. George's University (One IP from this month geolocates there, another account from last fall contains the acronym "SGU"). Helpful Raccoon (talk) 03:05, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Late, but a shame we can't help these students, given that WikiEd doesn't operate outside the U.S. and Canada. Even though most at Caribbean med schools like SGU are from one or the other. wizzito | say hello! 20:08, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

At the discussion Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#New draft: Jane Skripnik there is a relatively new user claiming that they have to create an article about a woman for their assignment for a class at Claremont McKenna College. They note that WikiEd reached out to them last year: "[w]e actually had some kind of coordinator representing Wikipedia, from education Wikipedia helping students last year, but I could not find that person." wizzito | say hello! 20:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

:Based on {{tq|I think it was Ian or something}}, that's probably {{u|Ian (Wiki Ed)}} (but that was for a previous class). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:08, 7 April 2025 (UTC)