User talk:PbakerODU

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Hey Pete,

I am definently behind on some of our projects... but as i am currently trying to do peer reviews for 2 authors, i don't know where to look for the peer reviews! I have not done an article of my own, but i figure i need to turn in the things on time before i turn in my things that are late. Am I just not looking in the right place? Or do I have to submit my 1000 word article before i review others? Andrewwall017 (talk) 01:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]


'Bold text'Mcott004 (talk) 18:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Pete, I sent an emial to the ECI email address, i have some unfortunate circumstances happen this past week with my grandmother, their is more info in the email that states why the user page wasnt comeplete as well as the first part of wiki article.[reply]

Pete,

Thanks for the message. Hope you have a great evening. Cdamb002 (talk) 01:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]



Thanks a lot , Pete! I hope I can figure this out (adding audio and video). Have a great day!Teachtheworld (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Hello PbakerODU,

Good morning! It was nice to see you last night at the main campus. I wish I had the time to talk and ask questions about uploading videos and picture slides for our first article project. Do you mind to shoot me an email or at the talkpage about the procedures, and step-by-step on how to do it?

By the way, I like the fish you are holding in the picture. Fish has been one of our vital foods in the Philippines.

Thank you so very much, Pete!Teachtheworld (talk) 18:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]



Leave a new message


I am sincerely sorry, i mistook you for a vandal. I have unblocked you, and I am sorry for the inconvenience. If you have any questions, let me know. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page redirects[edit source]

I would be more then happy to assist you with any problems you are having. What material do you want to redirect to where? For that matter, what book are you working on? anything you need, just leave a message on my user page, and I should get back to you pretty quickly. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed your page redirect problem. The new page that you created was "...of Education", and it should have been "...of Americal Education". The link should work fine now. By the way, when you leave a message somewhere, you can type "~~~~" (four tildes) to automatically sign your name, and produce a link back here to your user page. It's handy sometimes. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Link Problems[edit source]

Your problem is actually a common one, so don't feel bad about it. In a link, the "#" (pound sign) is a special character: it, and everything after it, is ignored when making a link. So a link to [[My Page # This stuff]] is exactly the same as a link to </nowiki<My Page</nowiki>. The easy solution to this problem is to delete all the pound-signs from your links, and possibly replace them with another symbol. For instance:

  • "My Page Part 1"
  • "My Page-1"
  • "My Page (1)"
  • "My Page:1"
  • "MyPage/1"

If all your links are like that, it might take a while to change them all over. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

test

Hi PbakerODU,

I'll add categories to the pages you've already created, but please add [[Category:Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education]] to these pages as you move them. --SB_Johnny | talk 18:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry... I thought you knew what that meant :). All you do is when you load the page add "[[Category:Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education]]" to the bottom of the page. That way the page will automatically appear on this page. This just helps keep track of the pages of the book, in case one isn't linked somehow and needs to be found, etc. It also allows category searches, helping people find the book. --SB_Johnny | talk 21:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categories[edit source]

A category is both an organizational and (less often) a navigational aide, that helps to lump related pages together. Often-times a book will have a category for all it's pages. This way, when you click the "Related Changes" link in the "toolbox" area (lower-left side of the screen), you will see all the changes and edits that have happened in all the pages in the same category. For instance, if other people are working on your book, you can keep track of all the changes by ensuring that all the pages are in the same category, and then click "related changes".

It isn't a requirement, but in general wikibooks likes pages to be categorized. If you are specifically against the categorization, you don't have to do it, but I warn you that some people will come in and categorize all your pages anyway, whether you want them to or not.

I hope this clears some things up. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you wouldn't mind, I would like to ask you a small favor: I've been nominated to receive "checkuser rights", which is a tool that would allow me to fight vandalism (like the kind that struck your book this week) here at wikibooks more effectively. If you wouldn't mind going to the nominations page and voting for me, I would appreciate it very much. I need 25 votes total, so every little bit helps. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Signatures on the chapter pages...[edit source]

I take it these are assignments? I rolled one back before I realised what it probably is. SB_Johnny | talk 03:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I have a few ideas...[edit source]

Hi Pete,

I'm a bit busy today, but I have some ideas for templates to help the project along.

2 questions:

  1. Are your students being graded on their assigned chapters? If so, do you think it would be better if the wikibooks community left things alone on those chapters for the duration of the class?
  2. I'm thinking of moving the current main chapter pages to the discussion pages (for "sign-up" use), and just having the main pages provide links to the chapters. I'll make a template for that that puts the sign-ups in a box that explains what the signups are about. Sound OK?

1 request:

It would be nice to have an "about this project" page... with information about the class you're instructing, the institution, the goals, why you're using wikibooks, etc. At least I personally would like to know :).

I'm usually logged on between 4AM and 6AM on weekdays, so if your students need admin assistance in the middle of the night (Eastern US time), I'll be happy to answer early the next day. Also you might want to let them know about the irc channel: it's on freenode, #wikibooks. --SB_Johnny | talk 18:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pete: I'm going to reply on my talk page point-by point, if you don't mind. Will appear in a few minutes. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply is there now. Put my talk page on your watchlist... if I'm replying to your messages in the future, I'll say "hey Pete!" in the edit summary. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another question...[edit source]

I was going to make up a template, then had some doubts after seeing how the signups are being done. Are different students working on different versions of the same chapter? If so, this is a bit strange... why do it on a wiki if the chapters are being written by particular invididuals? Isn't that kind of negating the advantages of using wikis? The normal advantage of a wiki is that it lets different authors collaborate on a particular project, such as an article or chapter.

I'm just a bit confused about what you're doing now :). --SB_Johnny | talk 15:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding: I do understand the difficulty raised by "how to assign grades", but perhaps having the last chapter (written during the last 2 weeks or so of the session) be How to grade students who participate in writing wikis :).SB_Johnny | talk 15:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding templates[edit source]

Hi Peter,

Our vandal patrollers keep reverting your student sign-ups (sorry about that), so I decided to make some templates after all. Here's how to do it:

  1. Move the page content to the discussion space: the easy way to do this is to just click on "edit this page", copy the content, then click on "discussion" and add the content there. (You could do this with pagemove too, but it's much more complicated).
  2. Add a template to the talk page: Simply add the following (you'll see why the "foreward" part is there when you see what the template does):
     {{subst:classprojtk|Social_and_Cultural_Foundations_of_American_Education/Foreword}}
  1. Add a template to the module page: Add the following:
     {{subst:classproj|Social_and_Cultural_Foundations_of_American_Education/Foreword}}
  1. Clean up the module page: Remove the signatures from the module page (they are now on the discussion page, and the template will make this clear to your students). Also, if it's not already there, don't forget to add a category tag to the pages, using this text:
     [[Category:Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education]]

Anyhoo, sorry it took me a bit longer than planned to make these up... it took me a while to figure out what you were doing, and then by the time I did it looked like a lot of work for not much benefit. However, this seems to be drawing the ire of the vandal fighters (adding signatures to module pages is considered vandalism), so it really should be done. This should be done both to the main chapter pages (already done on Social_and_Cultural_Foundations_of_American_Education/Chapter 1), and to the individual pages (like this one).

I'll help you with this if you're badly strapped for time, but I'm a bit strapped too... perhaps a few students might help? --SB_Johnny | talk 10:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, yup, probably best to add the cat tags to all of them (but not to the talk pages!), so we can keep track of them later.
As far as mistakes, I think the only major problem is having multiple versions of each chapter... or at least this is a problem insofar as what's going to be left on wikibooks when you're done (it's not really a textbook if there are multiple versions of each chapter, and it's actually "against the rules" to do this (it's called "forking", see Wikibooks:Forking_policy... it's listed as a "proposal", but I'm pretty sure the rule comes from Jimbo Wales, so it's more or less enforced anyway). I'm just worried that we (i.e., the "regular wikibookians") going to end up with an awful mess when you're done. --SB_Johnny | talk 14:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No problem... 100% behind ya! Just trying to make sure I understand what's going on :).
BTW: below, I added signatures for user Tvhsore. You'll probably end up needing to do this from time to time in your position, so here's the trick: First, go through the edit history to figure out who it was that left the comment, then copy the username, then type {{unsigned|username}} to add the "the preceding unsigned comment...". SB_Johnny | talk 23:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Hammock[edit source]

Hi, I signed in on chapter 6, How do we discipline —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tvhsore (talkcontribs) . (Added by SB_Johnny | talk, to provide easy link to Tvhsore's userpage)

Meeting[edit source]

Mr Baker I met with Dr Allen on 8/25 created an account and started on a topic. I was out of town the next week, but worked on the book. Dr. Allen said it was good to be first so that I would have my pick of the topics. Today I get e-mail on the "new" outline(minus my entries). All the early prep wiped out. SOOOO, I start again tonight on the "new outline". I wanted "How we discipline today". I finally figure out the workings of the book, use the talk page to find all the topics taken. Can I please have the wild card 6.7.2 as some "How we discipline today" topic. I can't sign up for the topic, I keep trying, but I think I might have been blocked out by not saving while in the talk page. Thomas Hammock(tvhsore) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tvhsore (talkcontribs) . (Added by SB_Johnny | talk, to provide easy link to Tvhsore's userpage)

Hello fellow Wikibookian![edit source]

It is a pleasure working with you everyday on our exciting Wikibook project. Please let me know how I can help you out in any way. EmilySipes 22:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Question about Citation of Copyrighted Materials[edit source]

Hi Pete,

She can certainly discuss it, and cite by simply providing a link to the YouTube "page" containing the cut. It might be copyvio on the YouTube side though... not sure what to do about that.

She can find plenty of links to more about Colbert and Wikipedia at: w:Wikipedia:Wikiality_and_Other_Tripling_Elephants. --SB_Johnny | talk 15:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, maybe she shouldn't link it. See w:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#What_is_our_stated_policy_on_YouTube.3F... the wikipedians are a bit more sophisticated about this sort of thing than we are here, and the conversation there seems to imply that this is a big no-no. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Calvin, Hobbes, and copyrights...[edit source]

Absolutely not! Aside from the fact that the image isn't public domain, the student put a {{PD-user}} tag on it, when I'm guessing he/she didn't create the image. This is serious stuff (i.e.: lying about ownership), and if students are found doing this dort of thing, they may find themselves blocked from editing wikibooks (probably not for long, but our resident copyright hawk (not me) is pretty strict about these things). Please make it clear to your students that violating copyrights on wikibooks is pretty much the same thing as plajurism (sp?)... aside from having the benefit of their peers and other wikibookians helping them write their chapters, they're also going to be under the scrutiny of anyone who happens to pop by, and copying materials that is not under a licence like the GFDL, PD, CC, etc. will inevitably be brought to light (that "check and balance" system would work better if it weren't for the multiple versions of each chapter...less people watching I would think).

The student who downloaded the image should see the image's talk page (Image talk:Chimage.gif, and explain where it came from (and if it wasn't legit, just say so and explain... no big deal). It will be deleted shortly in any case.

(Boy, I'm sure playing the hard-ass today, eh? :) --SB_Johnny | talk 23:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

finding images (and perhaps even images of nemo...)[edit source]

Hi Pete,

Probably the best place to start is at commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), other than that I just got a bunch of hits googling "public domain comics"... creative strings of google search words ("creative commons image grits", etc.) could yield surprising results :), and might be a good experiment for the students as well, both in terms of writing wikibooks and finding free materials for classroom use. (BTW: "creative commons" is a type of "copyleft" that's used for the majority of free-use images). --SB_Johnny | talk 22:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

background colors[edit source]

What color? (You might just check out the code at User:Minun and figure it out from there... or I can have a look later).

By the way, there are about 300 uncategorised pages in your book... if you have a chance to add the tags to them, that would be great (there are some other uncatted pages further down the list that belong to Wikiversity, but that list tops out at 1,000 and so they've been bumped - I'm working on the ones not in your book). --SB_Johnny | talk 12:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Thanks so much for the herculean categorisation effort there... can't wait to see what pops up on Sunday when the list is updated :). BTW, sorry if I wasn't clear before about needing them on all the pages. If I had been thinking ahead, I would have just included it in the template (there's always next time).
Anyway, how are you feeling now about doing this sort of project on WB? I've had time to read a few of the pages (ones that I had categorised), and a lot of it is very good material. Would you consider doing it again? If so (or even if not), would you accept if I nominated you for admin? This would be helpful for you in future projects, whether class-related or otherwise. --SB_Johnny | talk 13:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

categorization, etc.[edit source]

Hi Johnny,

I had meant to do this categorization for weeks, now, but you know how easy it is for things to get pushed to the back-burner. Today is a perfect opportunity for me to get this done, and I think it will be finished today. Thanks for the reminder!

Thanks... I was feeling like a big nag when I sent the reminder, and as I may (or at least should) have mentioned before, categorizing isn't an enforced policy, but it does make certain tasks a lot easier (such as keeping track of books, stub-sorting, and (as in this case) assisting in the import of pages for forking purposes (which is a fancy wikiway to say "sending things to another wiki to be developed as something other than a textbook (whew)").

This project is going very well. We are feeling a bit of heat from the administration for the usual reasons, (you know, they're all very worried about the quality of a student-authored textbook), but the students really seem engaged by the process. We've actually gotten very little negative feedback from them, which comes as a bit of a surprise to me since they've all been educated in the traditional way with teachers doling out the required information and students scrambling to write down every bit of it. This process is a huge departure from that model, and they seem to be loving it.

Yeah, I sort of figured the students were enjoying it, judging by the sheer volume of edits in your project over the past month. I'm guessing the faculty will be won over by the time it's done, especially once the wheat/chaff issues are resolved at the end of the semester :).

As far as continuing the project goes, we are planning on it. The first step is to determine a way for next semester's students to be equally engaged in the process now that the bulk of the textbook has already been generated. I've been thinking of a couple ways we could go about this, but what do you think?

Well, I've been wondering about that... this will be for the same course? One option would be to select the best versions, and make up a "print version page" using those, print the whole thing out, and ask the students to read the whole thing (arduous, I realise) over the first two weeks or so, while using the class time to discuss the mechanics of wiki-editing. Then just have them choose a version to rewrite or expand upon (either by choice or by chapter-based lottery... have the students sign up for the chapter, then randomly assign them to the versions).
Problem with this is that I don't think you could do it too many times... by the end of the second or third run you're going to have a serious, ready-for-print GFDL textbook with little need for improvement. But then you could adapt it for another class: perhaps if the faculty becomes convinced the wikibooks component could become a slight modification on the credit system (e.g., bumping a 3 credit course to 4 credits, or (as they did where I went to undergrad) have these classes qualify as a certain kind of prerequisite (at my school (Temple U) you needed to take a certain amount of "Writing Intensive" courses, and perhaps you could suggest a requirement for students to have one "Wiki Project" course).

My only concern about becoming an administrator is that there are still some serious gaps in my knowledge of the Wikibooks system, (as you know from all of my frantic messages to you over the past months), but the good news is that I'm becoming very comfortable with what I do know, and I'm sure as I pick up new info. and strategies, it'll all become easier. I would be honored if you felt it legitimate to nominate me, and I'd certainly accept were I to receive the necessary votes. Thanks very much for the compliment!

There's not as much involved as you might be thinking: all you have is 3 new tools (delete, protect, and block). The only thing you really need to learn is how to use them according to policy, and who to ask you're not sure.

Last, I wonder if it's possible for our textbook to be nominated for book of the month, or would our "Class Project" status disqualify us for consideration? I know, if the book got on the list, that would really be great for the students' morale. What do you think?

It's a wiki! If you want to "have it nominated", all you have to do is nominate it :). (You'd have my vote, BTW, but only after it's done, due to the whole "multiple versions of chapters" thing). --SB_Johnny | talk 16:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

reverting...[edit source]

Hi Pete,

Not sure exactly what you're asking. If you want to revert a page, click on the "history" button, choose the version you want to revert to (click on the date stamp), hit edit, then hit save. If there's a particular page you're having trouble with, let me know and I'll take a peek.

--SB_Johnny | talk 12:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Had No Idea[edit source]

Hi Johnny, I had no idea it was this easy. Thanks for the info.

Yah, I was a bit worried that I might be insultingly pointing out the obvious... as I've said before, there are a lot of things about your approach to this book that don't really take full advantage of the wikiness of wikibooks. Let's chat a bit over winter break (your winter break, I mean, I don't get breaks)... I've been reading parts of your book from time to time and it's pretty amazing what your students have done with this.

It seems that the book is really coming together nicely, and the students' reception of this type of project has been great. We are currently kicking around several variations of this project for next semester and have generated quite a bit of hype, (miraculously not all negative), around the university.

I'd be perfectly happy to answer questions you're not sure about. If you'd like to chat with me on the phone, I'll send my # to you over email or IRC.

Another question for you - do you know how I can track the number of times our book is viewed? Maybe this is a function not available to everyone, but I was just wondering.

Nope. This comes up often, but there are no pageview counters available on wikimedia projects. A third party counter can be included, but that's a bit controversial.

Thanks again for all your advice and support throughout this process. It has been a great and eye-opening experience for everyone involved. Hope you have a healthy and happy Thanksgiving!

You too. Make sure to eat too much :).

Pete 17:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: We're trying to work on a page to help class instructors... see Wikibooks:Guidelines_for_class_projects. Anything you could add to that would be great, and if you could maybe add some more questions on the talk page, that might be even better! --SB_Johnny | talk 21:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great job![edit source]

Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Chapter 10 Supplemental Materials/What factors influence curriculum design? 1 is a great module. Thanks for contributing your work on this module to Wikibooks.

Print versions...[edit source]

Honestly I really don't know much about how the print versions work (I print stuff from time to time, but only page by page). I think User:Whiteknight might be the man to talk to on that subject.

Nice to see so much activity in your wikineck of the wikiwoods :P! --SB_Johnny | talk 17:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Print version[edit source]

Hello PBaker, I would be happy to help with your print version! First things first, you can create the page for your print version at

Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Print Version

That's the preferred way to name a printable version. Once you have created the page, copy+paste this tag into your new page:

{{print version notice}}

And copy+paste this tag into your TOC:

{{Print version}}

Now that you have your tags lined up, you want to copy+paste your entire TOC into your print version page. What you want to change is "[[Book/Chapter]]" links so that they say "{{:Book/Chapter}}". The curly brackets and the colon will cause the chapter to be included into the print version automatically. Now, what you will end up with is your entire book on a single page (which can take a long time to load in your browser). If your book has a cover page or a page with a list of authors, or whatever, you can use the same kind of link to include those pages into your print version as well. At the end of your print version, include the following tag:

{{:GFDL}}

And that will cause the GFDL license to appear in your book as well (which is needed for legal reasons). Once your print version is all completed, you can direct your browser to:

http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?page=Social_and_Cultural_Foundations_of_American_Education&printable=yes

to see the final product. I'll see if I can find some good examples that you can follow for this. Let me know if you need anything else. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I might not be right about this, but I think you need a colon inside those brackets (i.e. {{:Book/chapter}}. I'm not completely sure about that, but if what Whiteknight mentioned doesn't work, try that for a spin. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Shoot, you are totally right Johnny. I forgot about the colon. I'll add it to my post above. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Images and copyrights...[edit source]

Hi Pete... someone expressed some concern on the mailinglist about images that are being uploaded by some of your students that either don't have copyright tags, are apparently copyrighted under a non-free license, or both. Have you talked to the students about this? For a primer, see commons:Commons:Licensing. Make sure they know they can end up being blocked from editing if they continue to upload copyvios after warning, too. :). --SB_Johnny | talk 15:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick reiteration of this point, if images and text that are uploaded to our site are not properly licensed, they can be deleted. It can be detrimental for a book to have a large number of images deleted because of copyright problems. Since this is a class project, we likely won't want to discipline your students for violating copyright, but considering that this could become a legal issue, we might need to do exactly that.
If you could please just take a quick minute to explain to your students the necessity of not violating copyright (a topic that many students are probably not familiar with), it would be well appreciated by everybody here. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We've had problems in the past where groups of students have uploaded copyrighted images improperly, and they got deleted. I would much rather send you a kind message about it now, then to try and explain later why all the images in your book were deleted. We do have a team of people who do delete copyrighted images, so I am only glad that I got in touch with you about this before the images were deleted! I'm no lawyer, but if you have any questions about copyright or images, or if any of your students have questions about it, please let me know. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lifespan[edit source]

Do you want to keep Lifespan for now, or have it deleted and develop it during the summer? --Iamunknown 06:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New student-written text about educational psychology[edit source]

Hi,

I left this message (see below) on Dwight Allen's user talk page, but then realized that maybe I should be addressing it to someone else responsible for the Social & Cultural Foundations book. Would you be that person? If it is not you, please let me know who might be the best person to write to. Thanks, Klseifert 16:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]



Dear Dwight,

I teach educational psychology at the University of Manitoba, and I am thinking about creating a student-written textbook about educational psychology. It would be reminiscent of your Wikibook about the social and cultural foundations of education.

I've read a lot of the behind-the-scenes advice that I could find about doing this (including your course syllabus for ECI 301, and the discussion pages for your Wikibook). My overall impression is that I should be able to do something along these lines, but it will have to be more modest, at least at the beginning. The reasons are that I have only about 70-75 students per year, only a handful of graduate students, and no grant to support this project at the moment. Nonetheless I would like to see what can be done.

I believe that you may have published an article or two about your experiences and/or assessment of the course, but I haven't been able to locate them. Can you point me in the right direction, and/or send me appropriate reprints (electronically is fine)? Any advice, ideas, or cautions would also be most welcome.

Thanks, Kelvin Seifert Faculty of Education University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada email: seifert@cc.umanitoba.ca

Klseifert 21:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Am I missing something?[edit source]

Am I missing something here about the Social & Cultural Foundations book? When I go to the latest edition it seems to be incomplete but earlier editions seem to have a lot of content. If this is a book then I would expect the content to be immediately available and the development of the new edition to be clearly signposted as a "work in progress". But perhaps I have misunderstood your layout. Have you considered a "print version" and a PDF for your best edition so that a casual reader can just get straight on and read the book? (I have noticed that you are populating edition 3 at a fair pace but is this the right approach for book production, emphasising the course rather than the book?)RobinH 10:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When you use someone else's image, you have to follow its license. Most of all, you have to mention the original image and its author! If it is not required by the license, it's at least a matter of good manners. Furthermore, if you have share-alike license, like the one in Image:Asian fan dance2.jpg, you have to license your derived work under the same license - not adding or substracting anything. So it's illegal to add GFDL license as you have done. --Derbeth talk 00:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, there is no one single page which would explain everything in a friendly way. Wipedia entries: w:GNU Free Documentation License and w:Creative Commons licenses provide some help. On Wikimedia Commons, when you see a photo page, you have "(Reusing this image)" link (near "Permission" row in information table). It also gives some explanation. Finally, when you have image under Creative Commons license, you can click on the link to its license and get a brief and understandable summary of terms of the license.
I have already changed Image:Asian fan dance2 with text 2.JPG to make it fully "legal". In the future, when you upload works under free licences found somewhere else (or their modified versions), you should mention source and author in image description ("Based on ... by ...") and choose the same license as the original (it's the safest solution although you are not always obliged to do this; from the drop-down list of licenses select one from section "Free-licensed work found on another websites"). You can always change license of the uploaded image in order to fix you mistake by editing its description page. --Derbeth talk 08:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Copyright problem with Image:Int in class 112.JPG[edit source]

Thanks for uploading Image:Int in class 112.JPG. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about what Wikibooks includes because of copyright law, and requires that we maintain a strict copyright policy. Image:Int in class 112.JPG and other files you uploaded may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and status. The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Please take the time to read Wikibooks:Media to learn more about what copyright information is required to satisfy our requirements and remember to include this important information for every file that you upload in the future as well. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or ask another Wikibookian at the help desk. Thank you.

See PbakerODU (unlicensed) for a complete list of your uploads which may get deleted soon.

Mike.lifeguard | talk 00:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recent page creations[edit source]

I notice you've created a bunch of pages which consist solely of a redlinked category. I assume these are not mistakes, and you'll be expanding them later?  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 22:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I created a template inspired by the notice at the top. You're welcome to use and change it, or not. This one just fits in better with our other templates.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 04:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Categories, etc., for the new book[edit source]

There's absolutely no problem if the category names are similar... in fact there is a "bot" available now that could even keep track of new pages added to a category if you think it would be useful. You might also think about using subcategories and other ways of taking advantage of the wiki software as well :).

Having similar topics is of course ok as well. I would like to ask you though... is there a "best hits" version of the first book? I've never actually ready it from front to back, and would like to some time (which reminds me to remind you of the possibilities of print versions as well). I'm glad to see you starting another project! --SB_Johnny | PA! 02:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you have on this image already is great. You might consider using the template {{Information}} to show information about the image - it creates a standard table so info is easy to find when looking at many images quickly.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 21:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have done everything fine: the derived work is your own, so you can write that you put in into public domain. As you have written who is the author of original work, there should be no confusion about who is author of what. --Derbeth talk 23:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll reply on my talk page to keep it all together in one place :). --SB_Johnny | PA! 00:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.[edit source]

Thanks for making my article look a thousand times better! :)

Great project[edit source]

Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education super to have students involved in work about their participation in education. Ive been writing in http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/FOSSlike_collaboration_in_schools and have found Margaret Wheatley's work very interesting regarding participatory network approaches to education and cultural organisation in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_WheatleyLucychili (talk) 08:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Elementary Education[edit source]

Hey Pete, it's good to hear from you. creating a "subdivision" or whatever is very easy. Everything we do is based on categories. Tag the first page of all the books you want in this subdivision with something like {{Subject|Education|Elementary Education}} This will put the books into both categories (or, if you prefer, you can pick just one or the other). Set that up, and I'll create a page to keep track of everything at Subject:Elementary Education, or whatever you want to call it. If you give me a list of books, I can do all the categorization myself (I have a bot that can automate tasks like this). Regardless of what you choose to do, it's very easy to make changes like this! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 03:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Replace "Elementary" in my post above with "Early Childhood". Sorry, between the time you posted your message to me, and the time I posted my reply, my wires got completely crossed. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 03:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


As to video, there is some support on MediaWiki, although we here at Wikibooks don't utilize it as much as we should. There are also limitations, only Ogg Theora videos can be posted onto Wikimedia because of copyright and security concerns. For more information about how video is uploaded and supported, see commons:Commons:Media_help. For some examples of video files and how they work, see commons:Category:Video. I know that there are software developments in the works to improve support for video, but I don't know the status of any of them. If you have a good video, upload it to commons instead of here, since images and video that are on commons can be easily shared among all wikimedia projects (Wikibooks in other languages, and other projects like Wikipedia and Wikiversity). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Authors Page[edit source]

The subject of an "Authors" page is a tricky one. However, despite the problems, it certainly isn't "vandalism" by any stretch of the imagination. For licening reasons we do tend to discourage them. For class-related projects, however, such pages can actually be an organizational benefit.

The GFDL license, which is used here on Wikibooks, requires us to attribute the work done by our contributors. One of the "best" ways (and by "best" I mean most automatic) is through the history pages. In the history page you can see a complete record of who edited what and when. However, the license also permits authors to be listed a title page or an "authors", unless authors choose not to. However this has, in the past, lead to arguments over who qualifies as an "author" of a book, who is entitled to list their names where, etc. Many productive contributors tend not to list themselves manually in such lists, and many unproductive people do. To avoid problems like these, we try to discourage people from doing this.

For class projects it's typically fine because it helps the class to stay organized, and it helps the students to receive attribution for their work that they wouldn't have otherwise because students tend not to remain here as productive members after their classes are over. Tieing a book to an educational institution also helps to make the book seem more authoritative, and helps to raise the perception of accuracy that readers have. It's also good PR for us to say that " A class from this university did great work on our website".

This said, putting your signature on every page in a book, or signing each individual contribution, is not approved of and probably can be taken as vandalism. If you keep everything on an "Authors" page, there shouldn't be a problem". --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please have the original photographer email us at permissions-en@wikimedia.org so we can confirm the permissions for this image? This is required for most works which have been previously published and/or are not the work of the person who uploads it. Thanks  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 21:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you took this photo, you cannot claim copyright on it. Obviously the person pictured in the image (ie the uploader) did not take this photo either. The copyright belongs to whoever took the photo; they must release the copyright (ie email permissions-en@wikimedia.org). Feel free to email me if you like.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 13:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mistakes?[edit source]

I assume these were created in error?  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 02:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Pete![edit source]

Hello Pete,

I just wanted to say hi and let you know we have some things in common. I saw your name on the syllabus and just kept thinking your name sounded so familar (mainly because we share the Baker name Hee Hee). But then you were in class explaining your slide and said you went to Kempsville. Ah ha! You were a class under me but I knew there were only so many Baker's there at KHS!

So just wanted to say a hello to a fellow Chief graduate! Whoop Whoop! See ya in class. Abake028 (talk) 14:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pete - I wanted to know if you get an email message whenever someone posts something on your talk page. I got one. Is this a function of the "watch" option? Jenniferjkidd (talk) 16:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great Work![edit source]

Your book this semester is looking fantastic! You guys always do exemplary work. Let me know if you need any help with anything. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Automation? Say no more. I can add all those links for you with my bot. When does it need to be done by? I'll follow the same pattern you've used on other pages, if it's going to be the same for all pages. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Setting the bot up is more work then it takes to actually run it, and the setup doesn't take too long. What I can do is also create the peer review pages after I have created the link for them. Where is the template located that you use to create those pages? I'll set the whole thing up tonight. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've done all the talk pages for chapter 1. When you get a chance, take a look over it to ensure I haven't messed anything up. I'll start the next few chapters within an hour or two, unless I hear from you otherwise. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm averaging about 3.5 seconds per page edit, probably much faster then you would be able to do it by hand! i'm finishing up chapter 4 now, I should be done most of the book by the end of the evening. Hope this is helpful! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Double-check my work, make sure I've done everything to spec. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your words are far too kind! The bot is one of my own creation and is, unfortunately, very rough around the edges. It requires the perl programming language (both for implementation and use), and a series of graphics libraries that can be difficult to install. On the bright side, whenever you need more help, I'm easy to get in touch with and always willing to help out. Maybe by next time I'll have made some improvements to the software that will make the task even faster and easier to do. Don't hesitate to ask, supporting efforts like yours is something I love doing here at Wikibooks. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re:My Mistake[edit source]

I knew it was too good to be true! Things like this never go completely right on the first try. The short answer is that I can fix this. The long answer is that it might be tomorrow or next week before I can start. I'll try to get it working tonight, sorry if it has to get pushed back till later. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Additional Wrinkle[edit source]

Hi Pete, sorry for the long delay. I just moved into a new apartment this weekend, and I've been very busy. Plus, now I've got all sorts of problems with my wireless router too. I'll make those changes you need, tonight or probably tomorrow if I can. Sorry about the delay! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the well-wishes! The move has been going extremely smoothly so far. My bot operates like a queue, where we put all the jobs into a list, and then I click the "start" button to run through the entire list a once. Once I click the start button, it is able to run a job every 2-4 seconds until the list is empty. Further the list is populated automatically (the bot makes it's own list of pages, which will include pages at the end of the book that you may have already edited) and it will simply ignore pages that have already been edited. So, it doesnt make much sense for you to start at the end of the book, since my bot will have to read in those pages anyway and attempt to edit them. I have plenty of time to work on it tonight, so sit back and relax a little! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to make sure I have this job straight:

  1. Change the links at the top of the peer review pages to point to their own discussion pages, not the chapter 1 page by default.
  2. Create that rubrik that you showed me on the peer review discussion pages.

Is this right? Is this all? I'm going to start setting this up but it will take me a while to get the lists of pages all compiled. let me know. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I messed up the links on the first 25 pages. Small typo. I'm going to continue on with the rest of the pages (807 in total!) now, and fix these few mistakes on a second pass. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Peer Review Response Pages[edit source]

These edits look like no problem whatsoever, and I'll try to make these edits starting tonight. You're planning to write a new edition of this book, or some other book, next semester too? We should really find a way to templateize all these things you're doing and all these edits you're making. I've got some ideas for some templates that we can use to "autoload" pages with the necessary text. Once a student clicks on a special link, it takes them to an edit page that already contains all the text that's supposed to be there. That is, unless the page already exists, and then it shows you the text that's already there. For an example of this mechanism, check out my Book Creator Gadget. You type the name of a book you want to create into the box and click "Create". If the book already exists, it shows the existing text of the page in the edit box and prints a warning that the page already exists. If it doesn't exist, the edit box contains a basic outline for a new book, and a set of instructions are displayed about how to fill it out.

For next semester, we could have an entire interface like this set up for your students: They click on a special link that auto-loads the page with all the necessary text, and some instructions are printed for them to teach them how to fill it out. It saves you work (since the software creates the page automatically when the students try to edit it).

Until then, I'll make the final changes with my bot. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Pete, I've been looking around, and I guess I don't understand what you are asking about the peer review template pages. All the pages I sampled in Chapters 10-13 all have these templates. Am I missing something?
I'm going to add the review buttons now. Let me know what you're talking about with these templates so I can add them soon too. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just want to make double-sure I know what you're talking about. You mean you want the rubriks on the peer review talk pages? Like this Talk:Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment/Edition 3/Foundations Table of Contents/Chapter 10/10.2.3/Peer Review One? Because all the peer review talk pages that I sample have this rubrik on them. I'll be happy to add anything I need, but I can't find anything that needs adding! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Copyright problems with Image:AfricaDwightlaptop.JPG[edit source]

This message box is using an invalid "type=warning" parameter and needs fixing.

Hi Pete This Cristina again (00766922) some one erase my page and I cant even find the history to restore it. Can you advise me in what I am doing wrong because every time I go back to my article is ether erase or completely change. I had been working so much in this article, just to keep it on the book, that I barely have time to improve it. Can you find my article. Thank you Cristina Murphy 00766922

Re: Making Pages Uneditable[edit source]

Hey Pete,

Pages can be made uneditable, a process called "protection". Only admins can protect pages. If it's a big issue for you, maybe it's worthwhile for you to become an administrator yourself. You certainly are busy enough around here, at least during the semester. The community usually likes admins who are willing to do general help for the entire site, not just for a single book. Take a look at Wikibooks:Wikibooks maintenance to see if there are any little jobs you would be interested in adopting, some of them can be very therapeutic and give you a chance to get away from your book and your students for a while.

If adding "Wikibooks administrator" to your list of tasks is the straw to break your camel's back, don't worry about it. Protecting pages is very easy, and you can always ask me to do it, or ask for some help at WB:ADMIN, a noticeboard that most of our admins watch and respond to. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Volunteering where you research[edit source]

He Pete,

You do raise an interesting point about volunteering at the same place you are conducting your research. You might want to talk to Cormac Lawler (Cormaggio) at Wikiversity. He's studying Wikiversity as part of his PhD research, and is still a very active volunteer there. I'm sure it's a narrow road to walk though, so I don't want to pressure your decision about it either way. I definitely don't mind doing things to help you and your classes out with their work, but I also don't want to become a bottleneck that prevents you from getting the work you need done. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk)

Re:Rating buttons[edit source]

Oh, and I'll work on adding those rating buttons tonight. I'll let you know if I have any questions or problems. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry this has been put off so long, I keep intending to do it and things pop up. I will do these tonight without worry. Sorry! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These are now Done. Again, sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. Please double-check my work, and let me know if you need anything else. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re:New Semester[edit source]

Hello Pete, happy to help! My bot uses a very general programming interface, so subtracting from pages is just as easy as adding to pages is. I'll start looking at the problem and hopefully have a solution ready for it soon.

On another note, I think we should talk about what kinds of boiler-plate text like this you want to have for this upcoming semester. I assume you are still going to want these rating buttons, talk page rubriks, rating pages, etc. I think we could create parameterized templates for these purposes, and that will help to make creating these pages and features (and then removing them later) much easier. Let me know what all you need and I can get started on creating templates for you. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Permissions?[edit source]

Hey pete, I'm excited to hear that your students are going to be using audio and video in the book this year. I'm really excited to see the results. I'm not entirely certain about how licensing of an audio/video interview works. I have some friends at Wikinews and Commons who might know better. I'll ask around and let you know what I find out. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pete. I started a resource page on Wikiversity to try and get some good tips about this, see v:Making classroom videos for learning resources... hopefully we'll get some feedback from the people on commons :-). --SB_Johnny talk 11:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Pete, I saw this book today and wanted to follow up with you about it. Is this something that is going to be pursued and expanded? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This one too, if you have chance to see the good professor: The Future of Feedback. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info Pete! Administrators can delete a page (an action that's considered too "disruptive" for all people to have access to), so I'll take care of them. Thanks! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Permissions[edit source]

I've updated you to +Editor. I would be happy to nominate you for additional tools too if you want them. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:26, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Editor status for student?[edit source]

Done. Glad to help, as always. I only wish I could make this whole issue go away permanently. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright[edit source]

Heads-up regarding File:Autumn sky.JPG: For some reason it didn't get a copyright tag like the others. --Swift (talk) 16:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the heads-up on this, Swift! I went in and changed the info to make it (I believe) legit. Let me know if you see any problems, and thanks again for keeping an eye on things. You and the rest of the admins are amazing.

PbakerODU (talk) 17:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. All looks good now. Thanks, --Swift (talk) 00:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Earlier comment[edit source]

Hi Pete,

Sorry to take so long in responding. I have been a bit swamped with other things and haven't checked my Introduction to Sociology wikibook in a while (about 2 months). Anyway, I saw your note on my talk page. What kind of collaboration did you have in mind? --Rcragun (talk) 18:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pete, First of all, you are right - my dog is awesome! He is a Malti-poo named Ziggy. Regs1687 (talk) 13:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Uploaded images[edit source]

Please ensure your students are familiar with Help:Uploading files before they upload files. I've seen many pictures uploaded for use either on their user pages or for the student-authored textbooks that I end up having to delete because of a lack of licensing information. I've talked this over with others and I cannot make exceptions to the policies simply because an image is used on someone's user page. I also do not like deleting images that may be useful in your textbooks. -- Adrignola talk contribs 19:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks for the link, Adrignola! I will pass this link along to the students. We instruct them in Information Literacy, but we clearly need some work still. Hope you have a great day!

PbakerODU (talk) 20:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review Templates[edit source]

Greetings again. While doing maintenance I came across a great many peer review templates for Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment Edition 4 that are not linked to by the book. See the start of them in Special:LonelyPages. Examining the articles they'd correspond to, some articles have links to peer reviews on the talk page where reader responses go and other articles just have the talk page set up for reader responses. Will these peer review templates that are not linked to by any of the pages of your book be used? If not, then I'd like to delete them. -- Adrignola talk contribs 17:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Hi Adrignola,

I checked your link and found 652 such peer review templates! Incredible!! I'm sorry these pages have been sitting there unused for so long. The root of this problem lies in the fact that I haven't yet found an efficient way to "delete" pages. Can you advise? Regardless, that fourth edition was, for all intents and purposes, "completed" in May 2009. Now, the bulk of the editing is taking place in this book. As such, getting rid of those unused pages is no problem. Other Wikibookians you can contact about any of this series of texts are Jamie Kaufman and Jennifer Kidd.

Thanks for all the hard work you're pumping into these texts. We really appreciate it! Have a good one.

PbakerODU (talk) 13:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's good to have reassurance before deleting so many pages. Page deletion can only be performed by administrators, due to the high-impact nature of the action. If you need individual pages deleted in the future, the addition of the {{delete|Your reasoning}} template code on the pages will attract the attention of an administrator shortly. Because you've provided the other contact personnel above, I'll be able to consider any of them or yourself as authorized to request a deletion. Thanks for the feedback. I will take care of the pages detailed above so that you can continue to write great textbooks. -- Adrignola talk contribs 14:27, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lost Page[edit source]

Found this while wandering through the review list. Where should it be? Geoff Plourde (talk) 18:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Hey Geoff,

Thanks for helping us organize all this stuff! It's amazing how many module pages we have floating around. All the content found on the page you linked above is also found at its correct location--here. As such, the page you linked above can be deleted if you've got that admin responsibility. Thanks again, and have a great day!

PbakerODU (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]