I think Wales is being a bit disingenuous in some of his statements.
"encyclopedia articles are essentially a blend of collected knowledge
and that is an area in which Wikipedia shines" (from the cited article),
he's ignoring that the 'collected knowledge' is from acknowledged
experts in the subject and that reliable fact checkers and editors
review the sources and writing. Obviously, WP utilizes an editing
process and much content is reviewed. But to state that entries are "...
equivalent in many areas to the average quality of entries in
Britannica..." isn't really credible. Take a look at almost any
article; especially review the edit history and discussion pages. While
it is nice to see that transparency, it usually shows no proof of
knowledge or background expertise, arguments over minor issues, no
acknowledgment of disputable or vague information. You see the errors
that are corrected, then changed, then re-corrected. Articles with huge
numbers of edits and editors and rare attribution of expertise when you
take the time to search them out. Then realize that a more reliable
resource is in order
One area that isn't discussed is the quality and editing of writing.
While editors are bickering over the shade of blue in a national flag,
they miss the badly constructed sentences and lack of flow from
paragraph to paragraph. The information may be there, but teasing it out
isn't an efficient use of reading or research time. Do you really want
to have this writing as a model? "Albatrosses travel huge distances
using a technique used by many long-winged seabirds called dynamic
soaring. This enables them to minimise the effort needed by gliding
across wave fronts gaining energy from the vertical wind gradient. Their
principal food is cephalopods." That last sentence sure fits the paragraph.
Pointing out the speed at which revisions can be made, or new articles
posted as an advantage also misses the mark since there are many more
sources that are more credible, accurate, and timely. Add the time
needed to verify the information as accurate and the source credible and
you have lost the vaunted speed.
Think of it this way: If there were a price tag for accessing WP, would
you be willing to spend budget money for it? When you build a
pathfinder, resource guide, webliography, or webquest; do those
individual articles meet your school and district selection standards?
Look at what Librarians Index to the Internet <lii.org>, webliographies
available on school sites, subscription databases, publisher sites and
in books, or resource notes with articles offer up. That is evaluation
based on quality, established, comparable standards. /
/
Robert Eiffert
Librarian, Pacific MS Vancouver WA
pac.egreen.wednet.edu/library beiffert@egreen.wednet.edu
Librarian in the Middle Blog: beiffert.net robert@beiffert.net
Joyce Valenza wrote:
>For me the jury is still out on Wikipedia. For some tasks, it rocks!
> For others, well, let's just say it doesn't rock. It is now coming
>up heavily on Yahoo and Google result lists and we absolutely need to
>open discussion with both students AND teachers.
>
>I agree with Andy that the evaluation activity could be incredibly
>interesting. In fact, I've played a little with evaluating it with
>students last school year. For high school students, examining the
>edit histories of articles could be both fascinating and tedious. For
>elementary studies, it would be kinda futile (IMHO). Contributors
>are often listed by their IP addresses or rather their strange screen
>names. Minor revisions often obscure major contributions.
>
>Here's a version of an article I wrote for the Inquirer last spring
>that will be updated for VOYA.
>
>http://joycevalenza.com/wiki.html
>
>
>On 7/12/05, Robert Eiffert <beiffert@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>There are a couple of specific pieces to note here (I posted a little
>>bit about this on my blog); There really needs to be some discussion of
>>how to evaluate, no mention of formally integrating research literacy
>>skills into what could really be a fine piece of real purpose writing.
>>
>>It is important that student researchers understand the need for and how
>>to apply a critical application of evaluative skills. <snipped>
>>
>>
>
>
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