Wikipedia can be an excellent springboard for learning some profound lessons. We’ll look at practical ways to use it with students (grade 7 and up) to: a) develop solid research skills, b) think critically about the nature of authority and evidence, and c) produce persuasive written and oral arguments.

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credibility wikipedia critical_thinking

"Recently, and to the embarrassment of some major publications, a university student in Ireland posted a fake quote on Wikipedia to see how many people would trust it as fact. Several newspapers, including the Guardian, and major blogs published the quote without checking its accuracy.

Critics of Wikipedia say instances like this point to the continuing danger of taking the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit” seriously as an information source. Others call Wikipedia nothing less than a revolution in information. (Our own judgments have been decidedly mixed.)

These debates notwithstanding, Wikipedia’s popularity continues to make standard encyclopedias look as hip as buggy whips.

Wikipedia editor/administrator Andrew Lih, author of the book Wikipedia Revolution, has agreed to answer our questions about Wikipedia and what it means to society.

Are instances like the above-mentioned quote hoax a sign that the media is becoming too reliant on Wikipedia as a source?

I once visited the massive Reuters operation in Bangalore, India, which was taking over many of the fact-checking functions of the London newsroom. I had a good chat with the researchers there, who when they found I was writing a book about Wikipedia, were enthusiastic to say they were fans and users of Wikipedia, but were explicitly told that Wikipedia is not allowed as a final authority for their fact-checking. And that’s entirely appropriate and right.

Wikipedia should be the starting point of research, not the ending point.

To the prospective journalist: there is no better place to start researching a story than Wikipedia, and probably no worse place to stop and use as a final word. In short, don’t do it. Wikipedia has helped you get your research started faster; don’t ruin your experience by using it incorrectly."

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credibility wikipedia

"It is probable that the idea of an encyclopaedia may undergo very considerable extension and elaboration in the near future. Its full possibilities have still to be realized. The encyclopaedias of the past have sufficed for the needs of a cultivated minority. They were written "for gentlemen by gentlemen" in a world wherein universal education was unthought of, and where the institutions of modern democracy with universal suffrage, so necessary in many resp"

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knowledge thinking_tools wikipedia

"As a long time defender of the open web and open content, I wanted to point out that the educational bias towards “authoritative” or “received” sources, though relevant, is also highly political/ideological – especially in relation to emergent sources of knowledge (i.e., Open Content). Ideological in the contexts of: 1) who has access or control of the means of knowledge power and production 2) who endorses or authorizes those voices and 3) “what” forms are accepted as “valid”."

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knowledge pedagogy wikipedia

"The spread of wiki technology combined with Wikimedia’s restricted goals has led to the creation of separate wikis devoted to diverse communities. Many do not reach their full potential through a lack of focus or leadership; others fail to attract stable contributors due to inadequate policies or promotion. This situation can be improved.

Variations in topic, audience, and technical ability demand differing approaches when building and managing wiki communities. I provide concrete examples from two: Creatures Wiki, based around an artificial life simulation for children; and WikiFur, an encyclopedia for the furry (anthropomorphic) fandom. I show community solutions to issues arising from policy decisions, such as the inclusion of information on community members, and describe approaches to disruption, including legal threats, proxy attacks, and influxes of visitors – and vandals – from popular websites.
I discuss the variable applicability of Wikipedia’s policies, as well as effective methods of online and offline promotion, recruiting, advertising, and monitoring of visitors and contributors. I outline effective uses of featured material on the front pages in driving regular contributions and traffic, and note the importance of personal leadership and delegation. I conclude that a respected community reference site can be created within half a year. (summary, PDF and audio versions)"

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collaboration wikipedia wiki

Starting this fall, you’ll have a new reason to trust the information you find on Wikipedia: An optional feature called “WikiTrust” will color code every word of the encyclopedia based on the reliability of its author and the length of time it has persisted on the page.

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credibility wikipedia reputation

Wikipedia may be a fantastic resource, but any savvy Internet user is aware of its limits. Edit wars, entries made and modified for PR purposes, hoaxes, and basic inaccuracies all creep into (and back out of) the system, meaning that any use of the information there for purposes that might be considered significant should require some serious fact-checking. And, accordingly, many academics don't accept references to Wikipedia, and its entries have been rejected as evidence by US courts. So, it's a bit of a surprise to find out that one Wikipedia hoax, perpetrated by a sociology student, managed to appear in a variety of news reports, and has stayed there even after the hoax was revealed.

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wikipedia credibility journalism

Video of hour long lecture by Mark Pesce. Tags:Dunbar's Number, Gnutella, hyperconnectivity, hyperintelligence, hypermimesis, iTunesU, Napster, Pesce, sharing, Uni Sydney, Wikipedia

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collective_intelligence cooperation sharing_economy wikipedia

* Date April 5, 2009
* Tags: teaching, Wikipedia, wikis

As some of you might guess, I get mixed reactions whenever I reveal that I use Wikipedia in my history classes. And not just for reading; I actually assign my students to research and write an article for Wikipedia. And it has consistently been one of my most successful assignments. It shows students the difference between fact-only writing and analytical writing, it provides an introduction to research methods, and it gives them more insight into the working of Wikipedia, so they understand why they should or shouldn’t use it for various situations.

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pedagogy wiki wikipedia literacy credibility educational_technology

Ed Chi, a senior research scientist for augmented social cognition at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and his colleagues have now created a tool, called WikiDashboard, that aims to reveal much of the normally hidden back-and-forth behind Wikipedia's

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reputation wikipedia

We are pleased to announce the release of our first research prototype of a social dynamic analysis tool for Wikipedia called WikiDashboard.

The idea is that if we provide social transparency and enable attribution of work to individual workers in Wikipe

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wiki reputation wikipedia

VisualWikipedia is a visual, intuitive, and interactive web interface to encyclopedic knowledge/information. It is designed to provide a fun place to learn stuff in an efficient manner. Please watch the following video to get a good sense of how to use it

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visualization mashups wikipedia

the very notion of a "free-rider problem" is nonsensical when we're talking about a project like Wikipedia.

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commons cooperation wikipedia collaboration

Wikipedia is made up of people just like you: students, professors, and everyday experts and fans. With about 10,000 articles added to Wikipedia each week, there are plenty of opportunities to join this global community. How Wikipedia Works explains how y

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wikipedia wiki sharing_economy cooperation

In a never-before-seen new initiative, the online reference encyclopedia project Citizendium (http://www.citizendium.org), in collaboration with expert teachers and lecturers, has launched Eduzendium. The Eduzendium project allows students to write their

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wikipedia wiki reference education pedagogy educational_technology

But when Gutenberg (borrowing from the Chinese) perfected moveable type, he led the way to another and even broader form of cultural sharing; literacy became widespread in the aftermath of the printing press,

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literacy media technology smartmobs knowledge wikipedia

This demo features the Wikipedia, with the text colored according to trust.

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knowledge wikii wikipedia reputation

a software tool that automatically evaluates and indicates the trust value of each of Wikipedia's billions of words. "We are trying to provide a simple visual guide that shows how reliable the information on Wikipedia is," he says.

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wiki wikipedia reputation knowledge

Here’s my latest slideshow on using Wikipedia for academia.

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wikipedia educational_technology

arge group write articles on topics they know well, while small staff formats into work. second group is clearly important - but it's a severe exaggeration to say that they wrote the encyclopedia.

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wikipedia