Monday, February 26, 2007
Academia Wrestles with Wikipedia’s Potential and Limitations
byThe use of Wikipedia among college students has led to crackdowns from professors – and promising uses in other areas of academia.
Wikipedia, if you aren’t familiar, is the online reference tool that relies on submissions and edits from volunteers. Because entries are continually-evolving and user-driven, they inevitably include incomplete information, historical inaccuracies and occasional flat-out lies.
At Middlebury College, the history department has banned students from citing Wikipedia in papers or exams after several professors noted that inaccurate information was being cited. (see this story). Middlebury is taking a reasoned approach, however: Wikipedia isn’t completely banned from students, but it shouldn’t be used as an academic source (similar to encyclopedias).
Even Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales recognizes the site’s limitations as a research tool. “For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia,” he told the Chronicle of Higher Education last year (according to this story).
Meanwhile, colleges and universities such as MIT, Cornell, Indiana and Yale have used Wikipedia in the classroom. Most efforts have leveraged Wikipedia’s strengths – including collaboration and knowledge-building – to create and/or expand entries related to the course content. Wikipedia contributors, in turn, have developed several pages to help educators incorporate the site into curriculum. See researching with Wikipedia, Wikipedia as an academic source and Wikipedia in academic studies.
