Which naturally leads to the question of how many times World Book has
"shaped" or "omitted" certain information about the actions of the
United States government. Compare what is in World Book to The People's
History of the United States.
Nancy
--
Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://csriu.org
nwillard@csriu.org
Giffard, Sue wrote:
> Let's not forget that the World Book made certain changes in its content to align
>it with Chinese government policy in its Chinese edition:
>http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6448199.html?q=world+book+china
> Profit wins over "accurate information" in this case, so how can we possibly
>present the World Book Encyclopedia to our students as an authoritative source
>written by experts?
>
> Sue Giffard
> Ethical Culture School
> New York, NY 10023
> sgiffard@ecfs.org
> (212)712-6292
>
> "Perhaps the only victory available [is] the victory of the heart over its own
>inclinations for despair, revenge and hatred." (Leonard Cohen, September 24, 2009)
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: School Library Media & Network Communications on behalf of Nancy Willard
> Sent: Mon 5/24/2010 11:40 AM
> To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: Wikipedia
>
> I was asked:
>
> What about an authoritative source written by experts in the field such as World
>Book Online or Student Resource Center.
>
> Good question.
>
><http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html>
>
>
>> Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as
>> Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world
>> around us, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.
>>
>> In response to situations like these and others in its history,
>> Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has always maintained that the service
>> and its community are built around a self-policing and self-cleaning
>> nature that is supposed to ensure its articles are accurate.
>>
>> Still, many critics have tried to downplay its role as a source of
>> valid information and have often pointed to the Encyclopedia
>> Britannica as an example of an accurate reference.
>>
>> For its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range
>> of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for
>> peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles--one
>> from each site on a given topic--side by side, but were not told which
>> article came from which site. Nature got back 42 usable reviews from
>> its field of experts.
>>
>> In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as
>> general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of
>> those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series
>> of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told,
>> Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.
>>
>> That averages out to 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86
>> for Wikipedia.
>>
>
> This creates a problem. If there is a perception that information
> included in an "authoritative source" like an encyclopedia is "accurate"
> what about the times when it is not accurate? When students conduct
> research on Wikipedia they must keep in mind that people can edit the
> material on Wikipedia, so it is always important to check the actual
> cites and to look in a number of places to see if the information is
> consistent. If we teach them to trust an "authoritative source" are we
> merely misleading them?
>
> So how should we teach abut information credibility?
>
> Nancy
>
>
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