What's Up With Wikipedia

Wikipedia - The biggest free-content encyclopedia on the internet and one of the top 100 websites in the world. It is also the most popular example of a Wiki (How Wikis Work). This unique online encyclopedia allows users to log on and become contributors. As a result many articles are written by the foremost experts in a field with lots of current information. Unfortunately, some articles are also poorly written and may contain incorrect information. This has led to several controversies.

The website has often been criticized for inaccuracies by educators (some examples here). Even the co-founder of the website, Larry Sanger has publicly stated that: "While Wikipedia is still quite useful and an amazing phenomenon, I have come to the view that it is also broken beyond repair." Here is a link to Wikipedia's response to the question of:

Is Wikipedia accurate and reliable?

No mater how you feel about it, there are some good uses for a site like Wikipedia. For example, one good use for Wikipedia is researching the most recent developments in technology. Because of the way it is edited it can be quickly updated with the most recent information about technological developments long before more traditional reference sources can even start to make updates. It can also be useful in pointing a researcher towards more reliable sources of information. Most Wikipedia entries include several links to outside websites that contain additional information for example. One also has to admit that the site is well laid out, easy to use and has a pretty efficient search engine. At the very least educators should become familiar with it just as they should become familiar with any web phenomenon that effects their students' learning.

A few years ago there was a research study that compared Wikipedia to Britannica for accuracy. The study, which was published in December of 2005, showed Wikipedia to be more accurate that Britannica. You can read about the results here:

cnet.com: http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
wired.com: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69844

In a more recent development the co-founder of Wikipedia has founded a new website called Citizendium where he hopes to improve on the Wikipedia model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to use their real names.