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Student's encouraged to use Wikipedia
The founder of the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, has criticised teachers who ban students from using the site. 'Speaking at the Online Information Centre, Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales branded those who have banned students from using the resource as "bad educators".Mr Wales now believes that Wikipedia, which is edited by users, is now accurate enough for it to be cited in academic work.
This is due to a number of new editing and checking procedures that have been added to the site which Mr Wales believes make it more trustworthy.
He believes that as long as an article included accurate citations there is "no problem" with it being used as a reference for students.
However he did concede that academics would "probably be better off doing their own research".
This is a shift from Mr Wales' attitude in 2005 when he told the BBC that anyone who copied information from Wikipedia "deserved to get an F grade".
At the time he believed that students should use the site as a starting point or "stepping stone" for their research.
The changes were made to the site's "free editing" policy which had allowed articles containing inaccuracies and bias to appear sparking the 2005 debate over the reliability of Wikipedia.
Now there is a system of real-time peer review where volunteers check new and updated articles for accuracy and impartiality.
"There is no substitute for peer critique," Mr Wales told delegates at London's Olympia.
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Published Date: 2007-12-07 11:20:28Subscribe to our RSS News feed:
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