There is another debate on whether or not Wikipedia should be used. That's not the right question. It's not if it should be used, but how it is used that is the issue.
Ben Witherington argues against it based on what seems to be a misconstrual of Wikipedia's open-source editing as a standard of truth that allows for correction and update from any number of sources. Mark Goodacre retorts that this open-source model "is in fact one of the reasons for the competence of many of Wikipedia's articles, and acts as a good model for students who are engaging critically with what Wikipedia says on a given subject." Jim West is still very uncomfortable with this open source method of encyclopedic knowledge.
Wikipedia is not the problem. The problem is that students use it as a primary source. It’s no different than using Britannica for that purpose. Studies have shown that Wikipedia's accuracy is on par with traditional publications and arguably better in some cases especially when the entry is of such an obscure nature that it does not have an identifiable "panel of experts" who hold substantially more qualifications to generate the piece than others. Moreover, open source allows for entries to escape the trappings of being interpretations of a subject vetted by a limited group of persons. Conservapedia takes that to a different level since its articles are intentionally slanted with a specific agenda contra the assumed "liberal" view of Wikipedia (which eschews Wikipedia's open-source model of editing altogether).
Henry Jenkins of MIT has looked into this issue quite a bit and is worth consulting.
"Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, publicly supported the Middlebury History Department's decision (to prohibit students from using Wikipedia as a scholarly source): "Basically, they are recommending exactly what we suggested — students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn't be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either. If they had put out a statement not to read Wikipedia at all, I would be laughing. They might as well say don't listen to rock'n'roll either."
Wikipedia itself can also be used constructively as one use at the University of Washington demonstrates where students used Wikipedia for term papers.
As the thoughts send this topic around the horn again, watch the Professor Wikipedia clip courtesy of Chris Brady just in case you have not seen it.
No related posts.
Using Wikipedia for term papers seems like a dynamite idea to me. I didn't get to listen to the presentation but I just like the idea. I've been thinking about doing something like this as a way to manage and to expand peer review for journal articles. I think there should be more authorial control in that case, but the paper could be refined, corrected and serrious criticism could be responded to and incorporated on line.
Drew, do you know anyone doing anything like that?
Using Wikipedia for term papers seems like a dynamite idea to me. I didn't get to listen to the presentation but I just like the idea. I've been thinking about doing something like this as a way to manage and to expand peer review for journal articles. I think there should be more authorial control in that case, but the paper could be refined, corrected and serrious criticism could be responded to and incorporated on line.
Drew, do you know anyone doing anything like that?
[...] entire piece is a red herring if to de-legitimate Wikipedia. As I have said repeatedly, the research that studies the accuracy of Wikipedia continues to conclude that the accuracy is on [...]