Need help? Click the "Discussion" tab and leave a question or request, or #wikipedia-en-classroom connect |
PA 673 is designed to introduce you to some analytical tools necessary for policy analysis, explore strategies for making policy analysis relevant to the policy debate, and develop some understanding of how policy analysis fits into the overall policymaking process. As you will see, this class will cover both theory and practical application. I don’t teach theory to torture you (although that may be a side benefit): knowing theory makes us better practitioners.
Most class days will be divided into three sections. First, we will discuss people skills for policy analysis. It is difficult to imagine practicing policy analysis without some understanding of people skills. Second, we will talk about the policy tool for the day. At the beginning of the semester, this may be a tool to understand policy in a general sense. Later in the semester, this section of the class will introduce a new method of analyzing policy (frequently using Excel). Third, to learn more about specific policy areas and to better understand how to communicate about policy with the broader public, we will be part of the Wikimedia Public Policy Project (a nationwide project to improve the quality of policy entries in Wikipedia) and part of most class days will be devoted to this project.
By the end of the semester students should:
1) Understand what policy analysis is and how policy analysis can improve governance.
2) Understand the role of people skills in policy analysis and be able to identify how your people skills can be improved.
3) Be able to identify how policy is made.
4) Understand when forecasting and cost-benefit analysis are appropriate and apply the proper technique to analyze policy in the proper situation.
5) Be more adept at using statistics to analyze policy.
6) Understand and apply the steps to analyzing policy.
7) Understand the strengths and weaknesses of surveys and experiments in policy analysis.
8) Be a better consumer of policy analysis.
9) Understand the similarities and differences across different types of policies.
10) Understand how to communicate about policy with a variety of audiences.
Exams: There will be a midterm and a final exam. Each is worth 20% of your grade
Homework (HW): Being a good policy analyst requires practice. As a result, you will complete at least ten homework assignments throughout the semester. Some of the more technical exercises have correct answers, and your grade will depend on the accuracy of the answer and how you tried to answer the question. Many of the questions, however, will not have a single right answer, and for these questions you will be graded for your effort, logic, and method of grappling with the problem presented. I anticipate having 10 homeworks, but I reserve the right to add more. These are marked on your syllabus with a (HW). 20% of your grade.
Wikimedia Assignments: We will be taking part in the Wikimedia Public Policy Initiative this semester. This project is meant to give you in-depth knowledge of a specific area of public policy, help you improve your ability to write about policy for a popular audience, and enable you to practice using new technologies to influence the policy debate. Your grade for this part of the course will be made up of:
Thursday, January 13- Introduction to Policy Analysis and to the course
Thursday, January 20 Problem Definition
Thursday, January 27: Policy Process and Policy Agendas
Thursday, February 3: Ethics of Policy Analysis; economic rationality and its impact on policy
Thursday, February 10: Policy and Criteria Beyond Efficiency
Thursday, February 17: Critical Thinking, Research Design and Measurement
Thursday, February 24: Midterm Exam
Thursday March 3: Spring Break. No Class
Thursday, March 10: Making Sense of Numbers
Thursday, March 17: A little bit of stats, regression
Thursday, March 24: Forecasting continued
Thursday, March 31: More Forecasting
Thursday, April 7: Cost-Benefit Analysis
Thursday, April 14: Cost Benefit Analysis
Thursday, April 21: Break That Quite Frankly, I Don’t Understand: No Class
Thursday, April 28: Qualitative Tools for policy analysis
Thursday, May 5: Final Exam
This section lists the students in the class (or rather their Wikipedia usernames), along with their Wikipedia articles.
Item | Preview | Level | Description | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
Welcome to Wikipedia brochure | Beginner | "Welcome to Wikipedia" gives you a basic introduction into contributing to Wikipedia. You will learn how to create a Wikipedia user account, how to start editing, and how to communicate with other contributors. You will also learn how articles evolve on Wikipedia and how to rate the quality of an existing article. The "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure contains 17 pages and an additional quick reference that helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup commands. | ||
Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia | Beginner | " Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia" is an editorial published in PLoS Computational Biology that gives advice for scientists (also relevant to other scholars and experts) on how to effectively contribute to Wikipedia. | ||
Evaluating Wikipedia article quality brochure | Beginner | Evaluating Wikipedia article quality is a reference guide with specific steps you can take to get the most out of Wikipedia, as well as a look at how its quality system works. | ||
Introduction to free licenses pamphlet | Beginner | Introduction to free licenses helps you understand the basic concepts of free licenses. It explains the idea of free licenses, as well as terms like "CC-by-SA" and "public domain". |
Item | Preview | Level | Description | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
Editing reference sheet | Beginner | This one-page quick reference helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup commands. | ||
How to get help handout | Beginner | This one-page handout explains the recommended way to get help and feedback for classes supported by Wikipedia Ambassadors: by posting on their course talk page and notifying their mentor. It also includes a glossary of additional help resources students might use. | ||
Citing sources handout | Intermediate | This handout explains why references are important, where to place them, and the basics of adding "ref" tags. | ||
Plagiarism handout | Intermediate | This handout explains what plagiarism is on Wikipedia in addition to why and how to avoid it. | ||
Moving out of your sandbox instructions | Intermediate | This handout walks through how to move an article draft from a userpage sandbox into Wikipedia | ||
File licensing tutorial | Beginner | This short handout explains why and how uploaded files (images) should be licensed. | SVG image | |
Referencing: WikiCode Handout | Beginner | This handout explains the basics of "ref" tags and the "name" parameter as well as "citation templates." | ||
Image uploading handout | Intermediate | This handout explains the basics of uploading an image on the English Wikipedia. | ||
Submitting an article to the Did You Know process instructions | Advanced | This handout walks through how to submit a new or newly expanded article to the Did You Know process so that it will appear on the Main Page. | ||
Visual explanation of the user contribution page | Beginner | Visual explanation of the user contribution page | SVG |
Need help? Click the "Discussion" tab and leave a question or request, or #wikipedia-en-classroom connect |
PA 673 is designed to introduce you to some analytical tools necessary for policy analysis, explore strategies for making policy analysis relevant to the policy debate, and develop some understanding of how policy analysis fits into the overall policymaking process. As you will see, this class will cover both theory and practical application. I don’t teach theory to torture you (although that may be a side benefit): knowing theory makes us better practitioners.
Most class days will be divided into three sections. First, we will discuss people skills for policy analysis. It is difficult to imagine practicing policy analysis without some understanding of people skills. Second, we will talk about the policy tool for the day. At the beginning of the semester, this may be a tool to understand policy in a general sense. Later in the semester, this section of the class will introduce a new method of analyzing policy (frequently using Excel). Third, to learn more about specific policy areas and to better understand how to communicate about policy with the broader public, we will be part of the Wikimedia Public Policy Project (a nationwide project to improve the quality of policy entries in Wikipedia) and part of most class days will be devoted to this project.
By the end of the semester students should:
1) Understand what policy analysis is and how policy analysis can improve governance.
2) Understand the role of people skills in policy analysis and be able to identify how your people skills can be improved.
3) Be able to identify how policy is made.
4) Understand when forecasting and cost-benefit analysis are appropriate and apply the proper technique to analyze policy in the proper situation.
5) Be more adept at using statistics to analyze policy.
6) Understand and apply the steps to analyzing policy.
7) Understand the strengths and weaknesses of surveys and experiments in policy analysis.
8) Be a better consumer of policy analysis.
9) Understand the similarities and differences across different types of policies.
10) Understand how to communicate about policy with a variety of audiences.
Exams: There will be a midterm and a final exam. Each is worth 20% of your grade
Homework (HW): Being a good policy analyst requires practice. As a result, you will complete at least ten homework assignments throughout the semester. Some of the more technical exercises have correct answers, and your grade will depend on the accuracy of the answer and how you tried to answer the question. Many of the questions, however, will not have a single right answer, and for these questions you will be graded for your effort, logic, and method of grappling with the problem presented. I anticipate having 10 homeworks, but I reserve the right to add more. These are marked on your syllabus with a (HW). 20% of your grade.
Wikimedia Assignments: We will be taking part in the Wikimedia Public Policy Initiative this semester. This project is meant to give you in-depth knowledge of a specific area of public policy, help you improve your ability to write about policy for a popular audience, and enable you to practice using new technologies to influence the policy debate. Your grade for this part of the course will be made up of:
Thursday, January 13- Introduction to Policy Analysis and to the course
Thursday, January 20 Problem Definition
Thursday, January 27: Policy Process and Policy Agendas
Thursday, February 3: Ethics of Policy Analysis; economic rationality and its impact on policy
Thursday, February 10: Policy and Criteria Beyond Efficiency
Thursday, February 17: Critical Thinking, Research Design and Measurement
Thursday, February 24: Midterm Exam
Thursday March 3: Spring Break. No Class
Thursday, March 10: Making Sense of Numbers
Thursday, March 17: A little bit of stats, regression
Thursday, March 24: Forecasting continued
Thursday, March 31: More Forecasting
Thursday, April 7: Cost-Benefit Analysis
Thursday, April 14: Cost Benefit Analysis
Thursday, April 21: Break That Quite Frankly, I Don’t Understand: No Class
Thursday, April 28: Qualitative Tools for policy analysis
Thursday, May 5: Final Exam
This section lists the students in the class (or rather their Wikipedia usernames), along with their Wikipedia articles.
Item | Preview | Level | Description | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
Welcome to Wikipedia brochure | Beginner | "Welcome to Wikipedia" gives you a basic introduction into contributing to Wikipedia. You will learn how to create a Wikipedia user account, how to start editing, and how to communicate with other contributors. You will also learn how articles evolve on Wikipedia and how to rate the quality of an existing article. The "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure contains 17 pages and an additional quick reference that helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup commands. | ||
Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia | Beginner | " Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia" is an editorial published in PLoS Computational Biology that gives advice for scientists (also relevant to other scholars and experts) on how to effectively contribute to Wikipedia. | ||
Evaluating Wikipedia article quality brochure | Beginner | Evaluating Wikipedia article quality is a reference guide with specific steps you can take to get the most out of Wikipedia, as well as a look at how its quality system works. | ||
Introduction to free licenses pamphlet | Beginner | Introduction to free licenses helps you understand the basic concepts of free licenses. It explains the idea of free licenses, as well as terms like "CC-by-SA" and "public domain". |
Item | Preview | Level | Description | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
Editing reference sheet | Beginner | This one-page quick reference helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup commands. | ||
How to get help handout | Beginner | This one-page handout explains the recommended way to get help and feedback for classes supported by Wikipedia Ambassadors: by posting on their course talk page and notifying their mentor. It also includes a glossary of additional help resources students might use. | ||
Citing sources handout | Intermediate | This handout explains why references are important, where to place them, and the basics of adding "ref" tags. | ||
Plagiarism handout | Intermediate | This handout explains what plagiarism is on Wikipedia in addition to why and how to avoid it. | ||
Moving out of your sandbox instructions | Intermediate | This handout walks through how to move an article draft from a userpage sandbox into Wikipedia | ||
File licensing tutorial | Beginner | This short handout explains why and how uploaded files (images) should be licensed. | SVG image | |
Referencing: WikiCode Handout | Beginner | This handout explains the basics of "ref" tags and the "name" parameter as well as "citation templates." | ||
Image uploading handout | Intermediate | This handout explains the basics of uploading an image on the English Wikipedia. | ||
Submitting an article to the Did You Know process instructions | Advanced | This handout walks through how to submit a new or newly expanded article to the Did You Know process so that it will appear on the Main Page. | ||
Visual explanation of the user contribution page | Beginner | Visual explanation of the user contribution page | SVG |