Matei email Q&A

(my Qs, Matei's As)

Q Was Eduzendium your idea? and if not, whose?

A Yes, I did propose the Eduzendium idea to my
colleagues at Citizendium. I wrote the proposal you
saw on the site.

Q Have you talked to other professors about
Eduzendium?

A Yes, I have and I and the other Citizendium leaders
are thinking of launching a broader campaign after a
period of testing with some classes at Purdue.

Q (if so, roughly how many, and what degree of
interest
have they shown in enlisting their students?)

A The conversations were very limited and I am still
in the process of negotiating some agreements. I
cannot talk about outcomes at this point.

Q How do you see Eduzendium's contributions being
structured?
(e.g. will articles be written by groups of students
or by individual students? will their work primarily
be reviewed by their professors, or by Cz's editors?
etc)

A The idea is at a project stage. The gist of our
proposed modus operandi is on the eduzendium page
http://www.eduzendium.org. However, and I would like
to emphasize this, what you see there can change at
any minute since that is a working document. See, for
example, some of the proposed changes on the talk side
of that wiki page.

Q What do you see as the main hurdle faced by
Eduzendium, and how can it be addressed?

A I think the main strategic issue is to make sure
that the project serves the educational process just
as much if not more, as it helps Citizendium expand
its repository of knowledge. We are working very hard
on finding the best editorial policies and support
mechanisms for making this into a win-win situation.
We want students to learn, professors to utilize a new
method of teaching, and Citizendium to add valuable
information to its knowledgebase.

Q If you were to place a bet as to what % of
Citizendium
articles created in the next decade would be created
by Eduzendium, what % would you bet on?

A It is too early to make such a prediction. Yet, I
believe that this idea has a great potential since it
brings together a continuous and high quality
knowledge stream with an ambitious and radically
different wiki system.

Q Have you yourself contributed any articles to
Citizendium, and if so, how has the experience gone?

A No, not yet, but as you can see on the eduzendium
proposal page, one of my seminars will be among the
first to propose some articles to Citizendium.