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Jimmy Wales Says Students 'Should Use' Wikipedia
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has up an article chatting with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Wales views the Wikipedia site as an educational resource, and apparently thinks teachers who downplay the site are 'bad educators'. '[A] perceived lack of authority ... has drawn criticism from other information sources. Ian Allgar of Encyclopedia Britannica maintains that, with 239 years of history and rigorous fact-checking procedures, Britannica should remain a leader in authoritative, politically-neutral information. Mr Allgar pointed out the trustworthy nature of paid-for, thoroughly-reviewed content, and noted that Wikipedia is still prone to vandalism.'"
So they ask Jimmy Wales if he thinks his encyclopedia is a good resource and then pose the same question to Wikipedia's main competitor?
Well color me surprised at the answers.
I touch computers in naughty places
Students should definitely use Wikipedia as a good place to find real sources. Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm a student doing my second degree in a fairly rigorous academic institution. This time it is a humanity degree (As opposed to my first degree - Computer Science).
There is no way referencing Wikipedia is OK. It's not peer reviewed. Not only is the information often wrong, but the information it does has is very biased (which is OK - all information is biased, but you need to see the whole range). Referencing Wikipedia is like saying "Some random guy on the internet once said...". Not exactly a lot of weight.
But using Wikipedia for a starting point - that's a good thing to do. When researching a new subject, I will often read Wikipedia for initial information, and use the sources it cites as a starting point.
I can't stand it when teachers or professors prohibit Wikipedia as a source of accurate information. Of course it's subject to vandalism and other issues, but so is any other source. That is why all research should make use of multiple sources. If something is incorrect in an article, a good researcher will find discrepancies with other info.
Even when it's not allowed as a direct source, Wikipedia is always a great first stop to find more information about something.
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
See that "Cite this article" link on the left column of Wikipedia?
Click on it.
I've had professors (PhD program in physics) say that they look stuff up on Wikipedia.
All the grad students look stuff up on it. There are lots of pretty scholarly physics articles on Wikipedia, and it's a good place to go when you need to look something up or get guidance on a fundamental topic.
Of course, in physics, you're supposed to think about anything you read and confirm that it makes sense before you repeat it or believe it. This really should be true in all fields, but for some reason it's beaten into physicists' heads more than some others, I think.
Wikipedia is never the final authority on anything, but it's a good starting point. If you can't remember which one of Maxwell's equations has the minus sign, it's a quicker place than most (unless you have your copy of Jackson at hand.)
those people show themselves to be irrelevant to the younger audience (in perception). Also, they are not engaging the students in a meaningful way and don't overcome the myth that the "old school" methods are all outdated and worthless.
I often think wikipedia is an excellent source in itself and for deeper knowledge, a reasonable starting point. Too often, the oft-heard admonishment "dig deeper!" does not always apply to students using wikipedia as their single source for a report, but also by the teachers criticizing wikipedia - usually they scan the surface of one edit of one article to look for those errors - while wholly ignoring the revealing and complete log of wikipedias discussions and history behind that single article. Behind that one surface, you get most of the interesting parts of a subject -- the common misunderstandings, misperceptions, and myths. The genuine points of contention and controversy and the gray areas where the truth is not wholly understood or available.
Instead, teachers indulge of what they criticize in their students - intellectual lethargy. Personally, I like what this professor is doing with wikipedia:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071030-prof-replaces-term-papers-with-wikipedia-contributions.html
It's about the smartest embrace of wikipedia I have seen so far.
I fixed your edit to this discussion.
Revision as of Fri Dec 07, '07 11:52 PM:
Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either, you have to follow the exact same procedure, so there is no difference. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia.
Revision as of Sat Dec 08, '07 01:23 AM:
Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source {citation needed}. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that {citation needed}, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material {citation needed}. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher {citation needed}. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either {citation needed}, you have to follow the exact same procedure {citation needed}, so there is no difference {citation needed}. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia {citation needed}.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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