Catshanghai

I’ve just been perusing the IBO’s (International Baccalaureate Organisation) forums for news about the IT ethics course I teach. I am a little concerned that this academic community is so dismissive of Wikipedia as a source of information. Therefore, I wrote this post in defense of Wikipedia that I have quoted below:

I am writing from the point of view as an ITGS teacher in Shanghai where Wikipedia is blocked and I regret my students not being able to access material from this community as an initial source of information.

Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia is clear that students should always verify the information they use through further research. Jimmy Wales argues that the community tends to correct obvious mistakes within 6 minutes and that entries are frozen when there gross acts of repetive vandalism. Hear this interview on Leo Laporte’s Net@Nite .

There are cases of US judges using Wikipedia as an information source for background. See this Guardian story and there is some debate about the accuracy of Wikipedia’s entries compared with other encyclopedias such as Britannica.

Wikipedia should not be written off just because there are some concerns about certain entries. The onus should go on the student and the researcher to verify the accuracy of information through critical thinking and fact checking. The group editorial process of Wikipedia and other community generated content is a new adventure for sharing information, but it should not be disowned by the academic community just because it is not controlled and mediated by traditional media hierarchies.