Discussions
You will be responsible for leading a discussion of four of the papers we are reading. The discussion is a pair assignment; you will do this with one other student.
For each of the papers you will lead a 30-40 minute discussion. A good discussion will be comprised of a brief overview of the paper, some form of class activity or exercise, and a bit of reflection to integrate the material.
Overview: Approximately 10-15 minutes of your discussion should summarize and briefly recapitulate the paper. Some aspects that your overview should include are:- What is this paper about?
- What is the motivation for doing this study?
- What is the problem the research is trying to solve?
- How does this relate to Wikipedia?
- What aspects of Wikipedia are important to this study?
- How was the study/research conducted?
- Have we seen a similar method or approach to research on Wikipedia?
- What are the key findings of the paper?
Activity/Exercise: Approximately 20 minutes of your discussion should include an activity that involves your classmates. The exercise should relate to the contents of the paper and hopfully be engaging.
Integrate: The last 5-10 minutes of your discussion should reflect on the overall impact, significance of the paper and help relate the paper to the broacer context of the course. You might address this by considering:
- What does this tell us about collaboration or groups?
- How does this research relate to other papers in the class?
Prepare in Advance: Preparing for this will take you time - this is not something you can do at the last minute. You should allocate time to read the paper, and discuss the paper with your partner. Decide which major points you will cover in your overview (referesher). You should develop a set of questions that you can ask the class to help guide them through the discussion. Your discussion leadership is 10% of your course grade. You should submit any notes you prepared for your overview, and your prepared discussion questions.