Wikipedia in Academic Studies

Abstract

a WEb 2.0 pRojECT ChaLLENgES uNiVERSiTY iNSTRuCToRS Wikipedia as a popular information ResourceThe founder of the free multilingual encyclopedia project Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, anticipates considerable changes of the academic learning culture. He presumes that "teaching at universities will change, that professors will become mentors accompanying the development of their students" and that students will "discover the world for themselves following their own interest." (Wales, 2008). Since 2001, Wikipedia has become one of the most popular websites and Web 2.0 applications worldwide. While the use of open contents and encyclopedic information as provided by Wikipedia has caused considerable problems within the academic community (e.g. the plagiarism problem and abSTRaCT Although Wikipedia has carved its way into the common vernacular, it faces resentments, particularly in higher education institutions, and many professors say students should think twice before turning to the free online encyclopedia for their academic work. "According to the criterion of scholarly standards, Wikipedia is citable on no account since authorship is not verifiable, and therefore an authentication of information is impossible." (Haber, 2007, p. 500). In spite of perceived quality deficits, Wikipedia is a popular information resource among students. Instructors increasingly take advantage of this student attitude through actively integrating Wikipedia as a learning tool into university courses in accordance with a constructivist teaching and learning paradigm. The chapter raises the question if Wikipedia is suited to make complex research, editing and bibliographic processes through which scholarship is produced transparent to students, and effectively improve their research and writing skills.

Explaining teaching uses of Wikipedia through faculty personal and contextual features

“…The use of Wikipedia has been increasingly making its way into university classrooms. In the university context, it is one of the resources most employed by students, who use it regularly to carry out different assignments and tasks (Wannemacher and Schulenburg, 2010; Brox, 2012). Among other reasons, they use it because of the perceived quality of many of its articles, the accessibility of its content, its hypertextual structure which facilitates browsing, and the abundance of references and sources of information (Jaschick, 2007; Alonso and García, 2013).…”

Analysing the potential of Wikipedia for science education using automatic organization of knowledge

“…In fact, this issue is obviously relevant for the recently growing body of literature on educational uses of Wikipedia. If at first the prohibition of teachers to cite Wikipedia was at the forefront, it was gradually substituted by using the collaborative encyclopedia in coursework (Wannemacher and Schulenburg, 2010). Early pedagogical schemes in higher education institutions in the USA (Moy et al , 2010) led the Wikipedia foundation to initiate a programme destined to support teachers use of Wikipedia in their classrooms (Wikipedia, 2011).…”