Andy Carvin at learning.now reports on a decision by the History Department at Middlebury College to bar students from using Wikipedia in research. Andy gives a great summary of the discussion going on about Wikipedia's realibility, which on average is very good, but since it's open to editing by just about anyone, it's difficult to know at any given moment how reliable any particular article might be.
The interesting twist here is that Wikipedia agrees. Wikipedia, since it's a wiki, is easy to edit. In fact, school blogging guru Will Richardson just this week boasted about his son's first contribution to the online encyclopedia. I'm not saying at all that reliability has anything to do with the age of contributors, but Will's post does celebrate (since it's generally a good thing) the fact that Wikipedia is the result of the collaboration and vigilance of many different kinds of people.
While a complete ban of Wikipedia might be controversial, I agree with Andy's assessment that Wikipedia is still very useful for getting into a subject quickly (the word 'wiki' is Hawaiian pidgin for 'quick' by the way). If the article is done well, it will include a bibliography pointing the reader to just those resources that will pass muster on a university research paper. I've advised my own students that responsible use of Wikipedia should include a review of the discussion and history tabs to see whether the content has benefited from broad collaboration and whether anyone considers the article to be biased. That's something that even the Encyclopedia Britannica won't give you.
In the end, Wikipedia, like any other media, should be approached with a critical eye. With the proliferation of web based resources, it seems that a lot of teachers are naturally suspicious of the web. However, there's no reason why we shouldn't teach students to be cautious of print media as well. Just check out Regret the Error to see how our most reputable sources get it wrong all the time.
Click here to read Andy Carvin's article, and click here to see more resources on information literacy that I've tagged at del.icio.us.
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