Wikipedia — Friend or Foe?

November 28, 2007 at 6:38 pm (articles and essays)

Just a mere mentioning of Wikipedia sends shudders through academia and makes responsible librarians wince, if not vomit.  We have good reasons to be suspicious of the free, online encyclopedia: anyone can edit the entries; some, if not most, entries are unverified; anyone can write  anything before someone decides to change it… or not.But being suspicious of Wikipedia is like being suspicious of  the World Wide Web,  social networking, web logs, etc.  Wikipedia is not going away and we had better make friends with it, or we’ll have to join the horseshoe makers/vinyl record collectors guild, drink lemonade and reminisce about the good old times.So, instead of turning students away from Wikipedia, how about we use it as a starting off point, a springboard to other (verified) information sources? Here’s an example:

 Library Science. There  is lot of information on library, librarianship, and librarians. Let’s assume that none of it is correct. At that end of the page there are links to books, reputable websites, and other authenticated sources  that would be of great value to students doing research on “library science”. We just have to teach them how to evaluate information on the web. It may not be easy, but getting angry at Wikipedia or the people who use it is of little value at this point.

 

Here’s an interesting article from Associated Press.

Wikipedia, Britannica: A Toss-Up

Associated Press 12.15.05 | 7:53 AM

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday.

The finding, based on a side-by-side comparison of articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum, comes as Wikipedia faces criticism over the accuracy of some of its entries.

Two weeks ago prominent journalist John Seigenthaler, the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today, revealed that a Wikipedia entry that ran for four months had incorrectly named him as a longtime suspect in the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.

Such errors appear to be the exception rather than the rule, Nature said in Wednesday’s article, which the scientific journal said was the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia to Britannica. Based on 42 articles reviewed by experts, the average scientific entry in Wikipedia contained four errors or omissions, while Britannica had three.

Of eight “serious errors” the reviewers found — including misinterpretations of important concepts — four came from each source, the journal reported.

“We’re very pleased with the results and we’re hoping it will focus people’s attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good,” said Jimmy Wales, who founded St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Wikipedia in 2001.

Wales said the accuracy of his project varies by topic, with strong suits including pop culture and contemporary technology. That’s because Wikipedia’s stable of dedicated volunteers tend to have more collective expertise in such areas, he said.

The site tends to lag when it comes to topics touching on the humanities, such as the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature for a particular year, Wales said.

Next month, Wikipedia plans to begin testing a new mechanism for reviewing the accuracy of its articles. The group also is working on ways to make its review process easier to use by people who have less familiarity with computers and the Internet.

Encyclopedia Britannica officials declined to comment on the findings because they haven’t seen the data. But spokesman Tom Panelas said such comparisons, assuming they’re conducted correctly, are valuable “because they tell us things you wouldn’t know otherwise.”

While some Britannica officials have publicly criticized Wikipedia’s quality in the past, Panelas praised the free service for having the speed and breadth to keep up on topics such as “extreme ironing.” The sport, in which competitors iron clothing in remote locations, is not covered in Britannica.

Britannica researchers plan to review the Nature study and correct any errors discovered, Panelas said.

Unlike Britannica, which charges for its content and pays a staff of experts to research and write its articles, Wikipedia gives away its content for free and allows anyone — amateur or professional, expert or novice — to submit and edit entries.

Wikipedia, which boasts 3.7 million articles in 200 languages, is the 37th most visited Web site on the Internet, according to the research service Alexa  

This article is from Ars Technica.

Banning Wikipedia at school: goodidea or missed opportunity?

By Nate Anderson | Published: November 27, 2007 – 11:58PM CT

Banning books has a long and storied history, but it’s not nearly as much fun as burning them in midnight bonfires. (Wikipedia knows all about this.) With so much text moving online, though, burning has lost much of its practicality. Have you ever tried to burn a server? Not very exciting.

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• Study: Students more wary of Wikipedia, online resources than thought
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Banning, though, is very much alive, and Wikipedia knows about it too, but for different reasons. The online encyclopedia has been on the receiving end of many a ban hammer; China isn’t too thrilled about the service or its penchant for hosting articles on troublesome topics like Tiananmen Square, and the Dutch Justice Ministry wants its 30,000 employees to stop making Wikipedia edits from government computers. But educators, well, they love it. Right?

Not all of them. Earlier this month, Pennsylvania’s Express-Times reported on a local school librarian who put up her own “Just Say No to Wikipedia” signs in the computer lab. The entire Warren Hills Regional School District in New Jersey has also blocked access from all school computers. The basic problem, according to officials, is that Wikipedia’s unverified accuracy and ease of use are making it too tempting for students to use as a primary source.

Wikipedia officials certainly don’t dispute that characterization and have never held the site up as a tool for academic work, except as a jumping-off point. But the New Jersey response is interesting in that it represents an extreme response to the problem.

Perhaps it’s a necessary one, though. I checked in with my wife, a college professor who assigns plenty of papers to her students. Despite an unceasing stream of comments about how Wikipedia cannot be used as a scholarly source, students without fail will use it every semester and cite it in their work, even in upper-level classes. The site is just so easy to use that the temptation to do so can be overwhelming… especially when it’s 1 AM and the library has closed.

These are bright kids, and they’re in college. Middle-school and high-school students may need even more “encouragement” to avoid sources like Wikipedia.

Turning Wikipedia into a learning opportunity 

But banning may not be the best way to do that. The issue goes beyond Wikipedia and concerns over accuracy, for one thing. Britannica isn’t a viable source for most high school or collegiate work, either; should we ban it for students’ own good? And what about textbooks? They offer an introduction to new ideas but are rarely appropriate sources for academic papers; indeed, their best use in such cases is as a jumping-off point.

Besides, Wikipedia is easily available from home and personal computers, so maybe what’s needed is more “source literacy” and media education instead. Banning Wikipedia also gives it the sweet scent of forbidden fruit as well, and it invites the same sort of circumvention techniques that students have used to get around MySpace blocks.

Denise Gonzalez-Walker, writing yesterday on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer‘s education blog, argued for making Wikipedia a learning opportunity. “It’s a shame that the teachers and librarians quoted in the article didn’t take advantage of the situation—finding inaccurate information on Wikipedia—by having their students revise the Wikipedia site with their own research, or engage in broader discussions about how authority and truth will be staked out in new media,” she said.

It’s a great idea, but are students in places like the Warren Hills Regional School District really going to fact-check every stat they dig up from Wikipedia? And if they do so, why use Wikipedia at all?

Still, teaching kids how to critically analyze information sources is an increasingly valuable skill in an information economy. If teachers want to use Wikipedia as a way to talk about this, more power to them.