Wikipedia & University Teaching

This is a guest post by Stephanie Mathson, Central Michigan University.

I’m not on the Wikipedia bandwagon, but I admit I do use it personally as a quick reference source on miscellaneous topics I want a bit of information about. There are other librarians though who are big supporters of the site; this interesting article was listed in the latest LOEX Currents: What to Do With Wikipedia.

I am intrigued by the suggestions for what instructors can do with Wikipedia, particularly this one: “A professor or information literacy instructor assigns groups of students to evaluate and edit Wikipedia articles, using research from other sources as an evaluative tool.” That might be a great way to introduce Reference (and other library) sources to students in class.

For more info on what’s being done by faculty at a number of institutions to demonstrate how open content sites (like Wikipedia) work, take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects

Oh, and also from the latest LOEX Currents, here is a fun fact:

9.0% - percentage of colleges that require a for-credit information literacy course for graduation (Primary Research Group survey of 110 U.S. and CAN colleges). – ResourceShelf, Retrieved from http://www.resourceshelf.com/ on March 19, 2008.

Food for thought…

Teaching with Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia of over two million articles that is open to anyone to edit. It does well in Google search results and is one of the most heavily used sites on the Internet. Students are increasingly using Wikipedia to conduct research. The fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia has raised concerns from many academics and some of them have banned the use of Wikipedia in their courses. Despite this, recent research reports in Nature and the Journal of American History have found the accuracy of Wikipedia comparable to the Encyclopedia Britannica and Encarta.

A recent study I published in MLA Forum explained some of the reasons why Wikipedia is hard to successfully vandalize. Yet, the type of peer review conducted is different than the scholarly literature and errors do get through. Even if students do not cite Wikipedia in a paper, it is very possible they used Wikipedia to find information anyway. Facing this reality, how can instructors teach students about the validity of research resources?

Wikipedia can be used as a tool for teaching students how to evaluate sources and think critically. Instructors who assign writing assignments should talk about Wikipedia and other similar sources early in the semester. The instructor should explain how she feels about Wikipedia and what her expectations are for the types of resources that will be accepted as citations in papers. Even if Wikipedia is not acceptable for use in papers for the course, the instructor can explain why this is the case and when it might be appropriate to use Wikipedia for research.

The instructor can also have students edit and use Wikipedia to teach critical thinking. Assign the students a relevant article and have them then look up the facts in more reliable sources. Is the article accurate? If not, have the students update the article with corrections and the appropriate citations.

Students can also be directed to articles that assert facts but do not have citations to back them up. Is what is written true? If not, have the students delete that part of the article. If it is correct, find and cite a source to verify it in the article. If other users delete factual corrections the students make, what does that say about the accuracy of Wikipedia?

Students can also be directed to examine Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects. Have the students compare this with articles from more mainstream sources. This can lead to a good discussion about whether bias can be detected in any of the articles. Does the methods of verifying information at the differing resources have any difference on apparent bias in the articles?

Instructors may be tempted to vandalize Wikipedia to demonstrate how easy it is to put bad information in Wikipedia. This is not a good idea. Not only is the vandalism likely to be detected and corrected quickly (disproving the point being made) but it is also rude to sabotage a project that thousands have contributed to for years just because you do not like it.

Wikipedia is not going to go away. Students will continue to use it. How can instructors find new and novel ways to teach about and with it?

36 percent of online American adults consult Wikipedia

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is reporting that 36 percent of online American adults consult Wikipedia. According to the report, the higher the level of education the more likely the person was to use Wikipedia. Clearly, educated Americans who are aware that Wikipedia may have errors are still using it. Could this be because Wikipedia is free, easy to use, and mostly (good enough) accurate the reason why? I expect this number to grow in the future and not go down.

Some highlights from the report:

More than one-third of American adult Internet users consult the citizen-generated online encyclopedia Wikipedia, according to a new nationwide survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And on a typical day, 8 percent of online Americans consult Wikipedia. In addition, the use of Wikipedia is more popular than some of the more prominent online activities tracked by Pew, including auctions, purchasing, dating, chat rooms and travel reservations.

Although there has been ongoing controversy about the reliability of articles on Wikipedia, the Pew survey shows that Wikipedia is far more popular among the well-educated than it is among those with lower levels of education.

- 50 percent of those with at least a college degree consult the site compared with 22 percent of those with a high school diploma.

- 46 percent of those age 18 and older who are current full- or part-time students have used Wikipedia compared with 36 percent of the overall Internet population.

Wikiseek

Does your search engine disappoint you? Would you rather only find content that is from Wikipedia or linked to from Wikipedia articles? The tool for you is at hand with the launch today of Wikiseek.

The site description reads, "The contents of Wikiseek are restricted to Wikipedia pages and only those sites which are referenced within Wikipedia, making it an authoritative source of information less subject to spam and SEO schemes. Wikiseek utilizes Searchme's category refinement technology, providing suggested search refinements based on user tagging and categorization within Wikipedia, making results more relevant than conventional search engines."

Although Wikipedia may have problems, all the content there is peer reviewed. Further, all the links to other Web sites are ruthlessly examined and weeded on a regular basis making it hard for any but the best sites to survive long term. If you disagree with any of the content or links, you can change it, discuss it, and view the history of how changes have been made. The Wikipedia project is truly open.

However, I do have concerns on basing a search engine entirely on Wikipedia. If something is not in Wikipedia, is it not worth finding? I kind of view Wikipedia like any other encyclopedia. It is a good starting point for background information but not in and of itself a source to use for serious research. Hence, any search engine (like Wikiseek) based on it is only a place to find the background information. Other tools (like library databases and other search engines) would be needed in many cases to move into deeper content.

How are students going to react to this search engine? While some give up Google and use this? I know many of the college students use Wikipedia as their main research tool so this may be a logical extension to them.

New Issue of MLA Forum is Available

The newest MLA Forum is now available. Articles include College Students, Plagiarism, and the Internet:The Role of Academic Librarians in Delivering Education and Awareness by Todd J. Wiebe, Personality Psychology and the Workplace by Paula Storm and Susann deVries, and Vandals, Administrators, and Sockpuppets, Oh My! An Ethnographic Study of Wikipedia's Handling of Problem Behavior by me.

I wrote the Wikipedia article over a year ago and have an earlier version of it up at my personal site. I would like to thank Pam Eddy, Julie Lorenzen, and Keith Tipton for their helpful suggestions in revising that and earlier drafts of the paper. I did not accept all of the suggestions but I did make changes and I appreciate the time they took to give me feedback.

The MLA Forum seeks submissions for the 12th issue. The purpose of the journal is to disseminate articles of interest to librarians and library staffs of the public, academic, special and school libraries in Michigan. For publication consideration, please submit one copy of a manuscript to: Susann deVries at sdevries at emich.edu. Non-Michigan authors are welcome to submit and I am happy to note that MLA Forum is now being indexed by Library Literature.

Wikipedia Plagiarism Ends Journalist's Career

Wikipedia Plagiarism Ends Journalist's Career. And yet another caught professional plagiarist! This is the first journalist I have heard about being busted for copying Wikipedia though.

Here is the report from Slashdot:

An anonymous reader writes "Tim Ryan, a 21 year veteran entertainment columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, was fired yesterday after an investigation revealed multiple instances of his incorporating unattributed paragraphs from other sources. This case is unique in that it was first revealed by Wikipedia after an attentive Wikipedia editor noted similarities between a Wikipedia article and one of Ryan's columns. However he wasn't fired until after other news outlets started to run the story. Sadly, though the Star-Bulletin has admitted to the plagiarism, they failed to publicly acknowledge that Wikipedia was responsible for bringing this situation to light."

I will be updating my plagiarism show and tell presentation for faculty to include this story. I wonder though, if the journalist had written the Wikipedia articles himself, would have copying them for his newspaper been plagiarism or just sloppy documentation?

Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica

Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica. CNN posted this article about the reliability of Wikipedia today based on a study from Nature. It noted, "Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday."

It goes on further to note, "Errors appear to be the exception rather than the rule, Nature said in Wednesday's article, which the scientific journal said was the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia to Britannica. Based on 42 articles reviewed by experts, the average scientific entry in Wikipedia contained four errors or omissions, while Britannica had three."

I wonder if this study took into account spammers and propagandists who know how to evade the major error correction methods used by Wikipedia?

In a recent article I noted, "One concern about validity of the articles at Wikipedia is the ability of clever vandals to make changes to articles without getting caught. Once a user learns how most vandalism is detected, actions can be taken to counter this. For example, as edit logs are kept on every user, there is nothing from making a new user account every time a user logs in. (Even logging in with AOL or EarthLink will give the user a new IP every time for anonymous editing.) If they make only one or two edits and then abandon the account, future vandalism by subsequent accounts will not give prior vandalism away. Also, if the vandal makes small changes to out-of-the-way articles or adds a seemingly related spam link to an article while also making a legitimate edit to improve the article, the vandalism may survive for a long period of time. Also, long established and trusted members do not have their edits scrutinized on a regular basis. It would be fairly easily for these users to make infrequent and hard to detect changes to vandalize or insert their own biases in articles. "

Yes, Wikipedia works most of the time. And it can be be updated instantly. The major articles will always be fixed quickly as they are visible. Vandalizing George W. Bush, China, gravity, history, Shakespeare, etc, is pointless. But how about the vast majority of Wikipedia articles which are not monitored closely? If you know what you are doing, a lot of articles can be altered incorrectly without anyone noticing. The smart vandal/spammer is not caught all the time!

This is one major difference between Wikipedia and Britannica. It is virtually impossible to "game" the Britannica no matter how hard you try.

I like Wikipedia. It is a good tool. But I fail to see how it can be considered an authority source like Britannica when it clearly can be manipulated by those who take the time to learn how to do it.

Vandals, Administrators, and Sockpuppets, Oh My! An Ethnographic Study of Wikipedia’s Handling of Problem Behavior

Vandals, Administrators, and Sockpuppets, Oh My! An Ethnographic Study of Wikipedia’s Handling of Problem Behavior. This is a link to the my newest online article. This one deals with problem behavior at Wikipedia and what the Wikipedians do about it. The article is still a draft so please send me comments if you any suggestions. I know it still needs help but I thought it would still be of interest to some. I hope to eventually publish this.

And this is probably timely anyway. Take a look what can happen when the system breaks down and false information gets into a biography at A false Wikipedia 'biography' from USA Today.

From the site:

Wikipedia is a 21st Century phenomena which is forcing many to reconsider what is and what is not valid and authoritative online. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that any one can edit. This creates many opportunities to expand knowledge but it also opens the project up to vandalism and abuse. Many writers have commented on this and determined that Wikipedia has a good defense against problematic behavior even if these same writers are unsure of the legitimacy of Wikipedia as a whole. Other writers have noted the need for identified authors for legitimacy to be attainable. This ethnographic study looks at a public system that Wikipedia uses to identify and correct problem behaviors from contributors. It concludes that Wikipedia does have a good system in place that can protect the integrity of articles in many instances. However, this study was limited in scope and was unable to determine if the system in place for abuse reporting is truly able to vouch for the status of Wikipedia as an authoritative resource.

Book - From Wikipedia

Book - From Wikipedia. This is a copy of the Wikipedia article on the book. I have placed a copy of it at some old space I have at Michigan State University. I am trying an experiment. I am going to keep this text pure and away from the editing that goes on constantly at Wikipedia. I'll check back periodically and see if the editing has improved the article. It will be easy to compare the two with an untouchable copy at my site. It might make for a good paper. Or it might be less interesting to write about than I thought...

From the site:

A book is a collection of leaves of paper, parchment or other material, bound together along one edge within covers. A book is also a literary work or a main division of such a work. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.

In library and information science, a book is called a monograph to distinguish it from serial publications such as magazines, journals or newspapers.

Publishers may produce low-cost, pre-proof editions known as galleys for promotional purposes, such as generating reviews in advance of publication. Galleys are usually made as cheaply as possible, since they are not intended for sale.

A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a bookworm.

Encarta lets everyone be an editor. Very interesting. This is very different from Wikipedia in one respect. All submissions are going to be reviewed by Encarta editors. This will add a level of real peer review which is often lacking at Wikipedia where people with no expertise can beat someone with a doctorate in the subject at hand if they are persistent enough and have the Wikipedia skills to win an edit war. This review level will also prevent the Chinese spambots for targetting Encarta. I'll go make some suggestions at Encarata and see how fast my additions get acted on.

From the site:

It happens all the time: You read an entry in an encyclopedia or other reputable source and think, "That's not right" or "They forgot this!"

Microsoft Corp.'s Encarta encyclopedia is testing a system that lets everyone be an editor -- in theory at least. Readers can suggest edits or additions to entries, although the changes are vetted by editors before they reach the page.

Encarta is not requiring such novice editors to identify themselves, said Gary Alt, Encarta's editorial director. But it is asking them to reveal the source of their information if possible, and the editorial staff will check for both factual errors and evidence of bias.

Cites and Insights (October 2004). Walt Crawford has a new issue up of his well done newsletter. In it, he has an article which has many good ideas on the pros and cons of the Web (and user created) encyclopedia Wikipedia. This is a good article and I e-mailed Mr. Crawford my thoughts on an additional problem area for Wikipedia.

I wrote -

Mr. Crawford:

I enjoyed reading your article on Wikipedia. There is one additional area though that you might want to address in a future look at Wikipedia.

Authors at Wikipedia are encouraged to copy public domain sources to create articles. The problem that this causes is that many of the Wikipedia articles are based on US Federal publications as all of these are in the public domain. While the government sources are generally good, they also have pro-American and other biases. For example, compare the History of Andorra article at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Andorra) with the State Departments Background notes on Andorra (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3164.htm).
(Scroll down to history and compare.) There are many other national histories which are almost word for word copies of the US State Department Background Notes history data. Other articles were originally based on State Department writing as well but have been modified. Another example is in education. Compare the ERIC Digest Transformative Learning in Adulthood (http://www.ericfacility.net/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed423426.html) with the Wikipedia article Transformative Learning ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_learning).

Another problem is the extensive use of old public domain information. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannia is used heavily in many history articles. While this data is not bad, it is dated and the last century of scholarship is ignored. For example, see the article at Wikipedia on the Roman Emperor Maxentius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxentius) compared with the 1911 encyclopedia article.

I still like Wikipedia but this continued reliance on old or governmentally produced information in an encyclopedia is clearly a problem.

Best wishes,

Michael Lorenzen
Head of Reference Services
Central Michigan University

Critical views of Wikipedia. This is an essay from Wikinfo that details some of the serious problems which are preventing Wikipedia from being an excellent reference source. Wikipedia has some merits (as I have posted previously) but there are some major issues which are hindering success.

From the site:

In a contrast to the Nupedia model, in which edit privileges were difficult to come by, Wikipedia offered edit privileges by default. Administrators revoke edit privileges at their discretion based on policies, and on their opinion of content or contributors.

Wikipedia, more so than other wiki services in early 2004, had become a main source for encyclopedic content redistributed by other sites. While this means that a much greater body of Internet content is freely available, it also means that any errors or political biases in Wikipedia are reproduced across the Internet to multiple sites...

In discussions of both policy and content, the loudest voices who attract the most supporters during the pendency of a discussion often dominate direction. Jim Wales's work under the title "God King" for several years encouraged new Wikipedia leaders to use cult-like language that discouraged opposition to his views and proposed policies. A review of user-histories at Wikipedia suggests that power users who spend several hours a day making small edits to numerous pages often dominate discussions, and comprise the most active elements of the administrative ranks. and that people who are qualified or interested in administrative functions may hold different interests from the people who are the best contributors.

Some users critical of the project have been blocked from discussions under such vague allegations as "trolling". Administrators usually claim users are excluded from on-line policy debates or votes for "behavioral reasons" and not for reasons related to a critical policy argument. Some administrators might not be adept at editorial skills that best resolve conflicts among contributors. An inability or lack of willingness among untrained administrators to consistently articulate what behavior - or rhetorical style - they find problematic might contribute to a less productive collaborative environment and lead to a continuation of conflict.

A related issue is ad hominem deletion or reversion of views without refutation, eliminating the contributions of several authors on the ad hominem grounds that a 'suspect' author contributed a few in the chain, and disregard of simple rules for deletion and being conservative about elimination of text. Accusations that one anonymous IP or pseudonym "is" a banned author seem to be quite common as well, and seem to justify for some administrators an extension of IP block tactics.

Another perceived flaw in Wikipedia is the lack of a common understanding on adding external links. Wikipedia (like all Wikis) has problems with wikispam. However, many users at Wikipedia feel obliged to remove most external links which are added to articles. This includes the vast majority which are legitimate links to sites that directly relate to the article at hand. Further, those who regularly add external links will find themselves being labeled as spammers and warned to cease their efforts or face being banned. This external link paranoia has driven many good editors away from Wikipedia.

Active learning - Wikipedia Here is the Wikipedia article on active learning. I recently added it to Wikipedia. Feel free to make changes if you want to improve it.

From the article:

"Research has consistently shown that traditional lecture methods, in which professors talk and students listen, dominate college and university classrooms. It is therefore important to know the nature of active learning, the empirical research on its use, the common obstacles and barriers that give rise to faculty members' resistance to interactive instructional techniques, and how faculty, faculty developers, administrators, and educational researchers can make real the promise of active learning."

"Until recently there has been no common definition of 'active learning.' Consequently, many believe that all learning is inherently active and that students are therefore 'actively involved' while listening to formal presentations in the classroom."

"Research suggests that the use of active learning techniques (as defined in the introduction) may have a positive impact upon students' learning. For example, several studies have shown that students prefer strategies that promote active learning rather than traditional lectures. Other research evaluating students' achievement has demonstrated that many strategies promoting active learning are comparable to lectures in promoting the mastery of content but superior to lectures in promoting the development of students' skills in thinking and writing."

Full article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning.

Information literacy - Wikipedia Here is a new article at Wikipedia on information literacy. I think it is a good introduction to the topic. If you don't like it and want to make changes, go ahead. Wikipedia is open source and anyone can make additions and changes to the encyclopedia. (It sounds like this is a vandals paradise but the hundreds of heavy users of the site run a tight ship and have methods of banning and reverting the mischief of pranksters.)

From the article:

"Although alternate definitions for information literacy have been developed by educational institutions, professional organizations and individuals, they are likely to stem from the definition offered in the Final Report of the American Library Association (ALA) Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, "To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information"(1989, p. 1). Since information may be presented in a number of formats, the term information applies to more than just the printed word. Other literacies such as visual, media, computer, network, and basic literacies are implicit in information literacy." Full article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_literacy.

Library and information science - Wikipedia

Library and information science - Wikipedia Here is the encyclopedia article for library and information science at Wikipedia. If you don't like the writing, go the page and make changes. This is a collaborative project. (Someone needs to add an entry for information science...)

From the site:

"Library and information science (LIS) is the study of issues related to libraries. This includes academic studies (most often surveys) about how library resources are used and how people interact with library systems. These studies tend to be specific to certain libraries at certain times. The organization of knowledge for efficient retrieval of relevant information is also a major research goal of LIS. Basic topics in library science include the acquisition, classification and preservation of library materials. In a more present-day view, a fervent outgrowth of LIS is information architecture. LIS should not be confused with information theory, the mathematical study of the concept of information."

"Library science is distinct from librarianship, which is the practical services rendered by librarians in their day-to-day attempt to meet the needs of library patrons. Librarianship tends not to create new knowledge, nor to strive to advance any field or discipline. Librarians only rarely engage in library science, and then usually outside their jobs as librarians. But the study of library science is part of the requisite training of librarians."

"The term library and information science should not be broken into these separate pieces. Library and information science is a hybrid academic field that grew from library schools' fight for survival in the electronic age. The politics of academia, issues of status and prestige, issues of perceived obsolescence and other forces created these programs. Programs in library and information science are interdisciplinary, overlapping with the fields of systems' analysis, computer science, statistics and various parts of the social sciences." Full article at http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_and_information_science.

Library - Wikipedia

Library - Wikipedia Here is the Wikipedia encyclopedia entry for library. I think it is well written.

From the entry:

"In its most general sense a library is a collection of books and other reference materials. The term is usually used to refer to a public, school, or institutional library. Such a library is open to consultation by the public, students, or patrons or employees of an institution, and often features a reference desk. Many libraries (called lending libraries) make at least some of their books available for borrowing, so readers can use them at home, over a period of days or weeks. As well as books, many libraries are now repositories and/or access points for other media, such as maps, microfilm, microfiche, audio tapes, CDs, LPs, video tapes, CD-ROMs and DVDs, and have facilities to use the Internet."

Etymology of the word

"The word is derived from Latin liber, which means "book." Derivations from the Greek Bibliotheke (from Biblos, book) are used in at least German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Dutch. Other languages, such as Icelandic, Finnish, and Estonian, use words that derive from their own words for book (Bokasafn, Kirjasto, and Raamatukogu, respectively)."


Library management

"Basic tasks in library management include the planning of acquisition (which materials should be acquired), library classification, preservation of materials (especially rare and fragile materials such as manuscripts), borrowing, and developing and administering library computer systems. More long-term issues include the planning of the construction of new libraries or extensions to existing ones."


Library instruction

"Many users do not know how to use a library correctly. Fear and anxiety are common in some users. An entire movement has sprung up to advocate library user education. The common term is library instruction." Full entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libraries.

Library instruction - Wikipedia

Library instruction - Wikipedia This is an entry on library instruction from the free web encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Entry begins:

"Also known as bibliographic instruction, library instruction is the process of teaching students how to use the library and conduct research."

"It is likely that librarians have always to a limited degree been involved in classroom teaching. For example, it is hard to imagine that the librarians at the Great Library of Alexandria did not assemble from time to time small groups of students and visiting scholars and instruct them on the proper handling and use of the valuable scrolls that resided there. Throughout most of history librarians have been members of other professions (the clergy and scholars of various disciplines) who took on the additional duty of maintaining the library collection of their institutions. It is highly likely that these individuals introduced library concepts into their regular lectures pertaining to their area of expertise. Unfortunately, no written record appears to exist detailing how library instruction in the classroom was carried out or how often it was conducted."

"German library literature records various examples of library instruction from the 17th to 19th centuries. Ewert in 1986 gave a summary of this literature and detailed where the library instruction occurred, who generally was conducting it, and what was covered. It shows that a tradition of library instruction in academic institutions had developed in Germany prior to the its origins in the United States in the late 19th century. As the United States' higher education system is based on the German model, this may have influenced the earliest academic library instruction practitioners in the US."

Wikipedia

Wikipedia This is a novel concept. It is an encyclopedia that anyone can stop by and edit. Despite the potential for abuse, Wikipedia seems to have been up successfully for several years now. I tried my hand at editing a few topics anonymously. I just added a few links and a small section on library instruction to the entry on Library. It worked just fine. I guess the community at Wikipedia has figured out ways to counter abusive, vandal minded, and crankpot contributors. If Wikipedia ever got big, I think the model Wikipedia would fail. It would be abused just like Usenet is. However, as it doesn't get a lot of attention yet, it still works. Watch out though if it ever gets a decent Google pagerank. Every spammer on Earth will try to place their links everywhere. But maybe the Wikipedians could handle it. I wish them luck and I think I'll contribute to the project a little myself.