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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.

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    Possible undeclared class of students editing about One health with mixed quality; instructor abandoned WikiEdu?

    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. [1], [2], [3]). 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. [4], 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 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)[reply]

    @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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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:
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    Informing instructors and students about contentious topic restrictions

    I just came across User:Etherab/Palestine Queering the Map, created as part of a WikiEdu assignment, and saw that it included a discussion of how the Gaza war affected LGBTQ+ people in Palestine. Since Etherab is not extended-confirmed, this is technically a violation of the extended-confirmed restriction that ArbCom applied to the Palestine-Israel conflict. This was done in good faith and doesn't seem disruptive, but I think it would be better (for everyone involved) if instructors and students knew about this restriction before deciding on course/project topics. jlwoodwa (talk) 21:11, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention @Jlwoodwa. I will reach out to the student and the instructor to let them know of the restrictions on this topic area. It's unclear to me what they plan to do with their contributions, but I'll touch base. We do try to steer classes away from contentious topics. In our trainings for instructors and students, we cover controversial topics and a provide a link to the Wikipedia:List of controversial issues, so they know what topics to avoid. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Brianda: It may be more appropriate to link to the current rules on WP:Contentious topics, which explains the restrictions, instead of the "Controversial issues" page which is clearly marked as "historical". CTOP also lists the topics that have active restrictions. — ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 20:56, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent point @ClaudineChionh. I'll share this with the team to update our training. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Noormalfoof/Culture of Palestine/Bibliography is similar. jlwoodwa (talk) 05:41, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Women in Red

    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)[reply]

    Based on I think it was Ian or something, that's probably Ian (Wiki Ed) (but that was for a previous class). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:08, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Mess at Followers and supporters of William Walker's filibustering in Nicaragua

    @Brianda (Wiki Ed) -- it looks like you're supporting Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/San Diego State University/US History to 1865 Section Three (Spring 2025). Editors from that class are currently making a mess of Followers and supporters of William Walker's filibustering in Nicaragua, adding tons of section headings with no content or references. Please help. Jay8g [V•T•E] 21:56, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    On it. Thanks for flagging this @Jay8g. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Yet another class creating resume-like/promotional articles

    This time it's Bio 4030 Biological Clocks 2025 (@Ian (Wiki Ed)). I've cleaned up a few of them, but this is an ongoing systemic problem with student editors, which indicates that there needs to be more specific training on NPOV and how Wikipedia articles aren't intended to promote their subjects. Jay8g [V•T•E] 20:06, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Who's doing that in this class, @Jay8g? While they tend to go a bit overboard on things like publications, they generally produce great work (for newbies) on chronobiologists. In fact, over the years they've produced almost all our articles on chronobiologists, which was great for Wikipedia when a group of chronobiologists won a Nobel Prize. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:08, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've just noticed some of them making a real mess at Traditional Chinese Medicine. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tryptofish - yes. Fortunately Bon courage pinged me when the second student repeated the first student's addition, and I was able to email the instructor. I trust that they will deal with it.
    It's entirely on me for not redirecting those students when they picked the article. I got an alert that they had assigned themselves it, and though I saw it and intended to intervene, I didn't. Sometimes life needs higher priority than work, and in this case it happened as my wife's uncle was dying.
    My manners, upbringing, and the fact that I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Canada all tell me that I should apologise for the inconvenience caused by my mistake (both to community members and to the students who wasted their time creating something that could never work on Wikipedia), but the truth is I don't regret my choices. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, Ian, for taking care of this, and please don't worry about your role in it. I appreciate and value the work that you do, and please accept my condolences for your loss. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Class demanding published/reviewed articles for a grade

    I just had a conversation on #wikipedia-en-help with a student who's evidently being required to submit a draft for a grade; the draft they gave me was Draft:Le carreau des halles, 1880. The course is HART 1300 at Vanderbilt University, and the professor is Matthew Worsnick. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 23:11, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    This one isn't one of ours, but we'll reach out and see if we can offer our support in the future! (Being graded on content actually appearing on Wikipedia is not allowed in Wiki Education's program.) Thanks for flagging it! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:45, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Unknown class at Jenny Lind

    A number of brand-new editors have been making massive cuts at Jenny Lind today; one has identified this as a class assignment. Not sure what class this is but one is blocked and more may be headed that way. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    If you're able to find more information about which school they're at, please let us know! They're not one we're aware of. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:55, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Class creating articles on very narrow topics directly in article space

    See Ecological immunology and traditional adaptation (which I draftified but was then unilaterally undraftified and also recreated as a duplicate at Ecological Immunology and Traditional Adaptation) and Draft:Syndemics and Health Hazards in Informal E-waste Economies. This is Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Washington State University/Evolutionary medicine (Spring) (pinging @Ian (Wiki Ed)). These articles appear more like essays and are on topics that seem very unlikely to make good stand-alone articles (at most, a shorter version may be appropriate as part of a related article). Can you help work with these students to figure out what's going on here? Jay8g [V•T•E] 20:13, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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