Wikipedia turns 10: Are we banning or boosting?

Hard to believe that Wikipedia is has just turned 10 years old. That's at least 100 or 120 in "Internet years." Like many librarians trained to evaluate information  sources on a far different set of criteria than "majority rule," I was taken aback when I first encountered Wikipedia. But on reflection, I soon became a cautious fan. Here's a column from 2006. Seems to still hold up pretty good.

Wikipedia Use: Ban It or Boost It?
Media Matters, Leading & Learning, October 2006

“Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence” headline from The Onion, July 26, 2006

A collective gasp and shudder went palpably through the entire room of library media specialists when I first heard a conference presenter describe how Wikipedia <http://wikipedia.org/> entries are written – by anyone, at anytime, on nearly any topic. No editors or editorial process. Instantaneous changes. Faith that the “lay” viewer of the entry will correct any inaccurate information found. Wikipedia flaunts every rule our library schools taught us about the “authority” of a reference source. 

Wikipedia, that growing, user-created online encyclopedia, is the poster child for Web 2.0 and is fostering a sea change in ideas about the credibility and value of information, products and services.  The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Since it has emerged on the scene in 2001, Wikipedia seems to have already gone through Schopenhauer’s “stages of truth” in the general public’s mind. More than a million people a day visit the site.

The thought of a reference source that anyone can edit seems on its face at first ridiculous to those of us who have been taught to identify the reliability of a resource using traditional criteria. And indeed there have been highly publicized cases of deliberately false, even malicious, content placed in Wikipedia entries. But when Nature magazine reported a study late in 2005 that showed Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia were comparatively accurate in their respective science entries, the theory of “self-correcting” information seemed to be validated. Historian Roy Rosensweig defends the accuracy of Wikipedia entries as well: “Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events in U.S. history. In the 25 biographies I read closely, I found clear-cut factual errors in only 4. Most were small and inconsequential.”

And on May 8, 2006, respected New York Times columnist Paul Krugman quoted from Wikipedia to define “conspiracy theory.”

Ridicule, opposition, self-evidence. Where are you? How many of you already turn to the Wikipedia for a quick understanding of a topic? How many of your students do? And how do you counsel them when asked about accuracy? Should Wikipedia be an accepted source for a research assignment?

While it is difficult to give a blanket endorsement to Wikipedia, it can be a valuable resource for students and staff alike.  Why turn to Wikipedia instead of the Encyclopedia Britannica?

1. It has a wider scope. As of August 2006, Wikipedia contained over a million articles in its English-language version; Encyclopedia Britannica had 65,000 articles in its 2005 print edition and 120,000 in its the online edition. In her delightful New Yorker article, Stacy Schiff writes:

Apparently, no traditional encyclopedia has ever suspected that someone might wonder about Sudoku or about prostitution in China. Or, for that matter, about Capgras delusion (the unnerving sensation that an impostor is sitting in for a close relative), the Boston molasses disaster, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, Bill Gates’s house, the forty-five-minute Anglo-Zanzibar War, or Islam in Iceland. Wikipedia includes fine entries on Kafka and the War of the Spanish Succession, and also a complete guide to the ships of the U.S. Navy, a definition of Philadelphia cheesesteak, a masterly page on Scrabble, a list of historical cats (celebrity cats, a cat millionaire, the first feline to circumnavigate Australia), a survey of invented expletives in fiction (“bippie,” “cakesniffer,” “furgle”), instructions for curing hiccups, and an article that describes, with schematic diagrams, how to build a stove from a discarded soda can.”

2. It has up-to-date information on timely topics. Wikipedia may be one’s only reference source on recent technologies and events. For current popular social concepts such as “the long tail,” technology terms such “GNU,” or up-to-date information on political groups such as ‘Hezbollah,” print or traditionally edited sources can’t keep up. (As I write this at about 10AM CDT, dozens of updates have been made to the Hezbollah entry already today.)

3. Web 2.0 sources may state values closer to that of the reader. The voice of the common man, vox populi, is being heard, and heeded as a source of authentic, reliable information. My own view of the reliability of information has changed. In selecting hotels, I now use TripAdvisor.com, with its multiple, recent and personal reviews of lodging rather than Fodors or Frommers. Why? It’s more accurate, timely and allows me to read a variety of opinions. And this has become my habit with almost any consumer-type purchase. What do “real” people have to say? 

4. Controversial/undocumented information is noted as such. David Weinberger writes, “There's one more sign of credibility of a Wikipedia page: If it contains a warning about the reliability of the page, we'll trust it more. This is only superficially contradictory.” Wikipedia entries are flagged with readily visible warnings such as “The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. See the relevant discussion on the talk page.” The user who reads the “talk page” will glean an understanding of the controversies about the topic.

5. Hey, it’s only an encyclopedia for heaven sakes! Basic references sources – whether Wikipedia or WorldBook – should be used to get a general overview of a topic or put a topic in context, not be used as a sole and final authoritative source.

But we also need to teach our students strategies for evaluating Wikipedia entries – indeed any information source online or in print.

Even very young students can and should be learning to consider the accuracy and potential bias of information sources. Since junior high students often make websites that often look better than those of college professors, we need to teach students to look:

• For the same information from multiple sources.
• At the age of the page.
• At the credentials and affiliation of the author.
• For both stated and unstated biases by the page author or sponsor.

Kathy Schrock has a useful comprehensive approach to website evaluation, listing 13 questions students might ask to determine the reliability of resource.

As students use research to solve problems about controversial social and ethical issues, the ability to evaluate and defend one’s choice of information source becomes as important as finding an answer to the research itself. As the Internet (and especially Web 2.0) allows a cacophony of voices to rise, expressing a increasing range of views, a conclusion without defensible sources in its support will not be of value. 

Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls…er, Wikipedia.

Sources cited:

• Rosenzweig, Roy "Can History be Open Source?" Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006) <http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-media/essays/?essayid=42>
• Schiff, Stacy “Know it all: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?” New Yorker, July 31, 2006. <http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact>
• Schrock, Kathy “The ABC’s of Website Evaluation,” <http://schrockguide.org/abceval>
• Rosenzweig, Roy “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past” (Originally published in
• Weinberger, David “Why believe Wikipedia?” JOHO: Journal of Hyperlinked Organization, July 23, 2006 <http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jul23-06.html#wikipedia>

Image source: http://2log.biz/?blog_id=1965

A response to what gets tested: guest post by Mary M

My good friend and colleague, Mary Mehsikomer from Region One up in Morehead, MN. sent this thoughtful reply of my blog entry, "BFTP: What gets tested, gets taught." She has kindly agreed to let me use her comment as a guest post. (Funny how I get more responses from my guest blogs than from what I write. I try not to take it personally.)

I too have struggled a lot with whether information literacy skills should be taught separately or be integrated within the curriculum content areas. Having worked with a couple of standards revision committees, trying to integrate these skills is no easy task, yet to have the skills be authentically mastered, shouldn't they be part of the content areas? When students go to postsecondary education or into the work force they are going to be expected to have these skills and use them as part of academic mastery or accomplishing the tasks required of them by their employer.

And, you are absolutely right - teachers have to focus on what they will assess as part of their teaching.

At this point, I would argue for a separate curriculum, preferably to be taught be a licensed school library media specialist. Here's why:

1. Information literacy is not being effectively taught to students in the content areas now. Yes, there are some teachers who have embraced the need for these skills and work very hard to build them into their instruction, but this is not a widespread practice.
2. Classroom teachers in other content areas have enough trouble getting through the curriculum assigned to them to teach and meet all the standards. It is really difficult for them to build time in to master information/technology literacy in along with everything else.
3. Classroom teachers aren't always confident in their own technology skills nor have they been provided the training to teach these skills themselves. A school librarian should have had the training necessary to do this.
4. The school librarian is supporting all the content areas so he or she may be better positioned to design content-based learning activities within their own curriculum that build the information literacy skills the students need throughout their school day. The school librarian is hopefully clued into the curriculum to do this.
5. Most classrooms still do not have enough technology to make information literacy a regular part of the learning day. At least in most schools there is a lab or some other type of set-up that provides the students with some access to technology in the media center or somewhere else in the building where the librarian can access it.

Of course, we have the problem that we are losing our school librarians to budget cuts, retirements, and other catastrophes - but if administrators were really cognizant about the types of 21st century skills students need to succeed in higher education and today's workforce, and if they really understood the role of a school library media specialist, they would be either hiring highly qualified school library media specialists or insisting that those still employed in their schools be building these skills for their students.

BFTP: CPVP

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post January 24, 2006. Here's a follow-up column: Filtering Follies.

The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) is the official name of the religious police in Saudi Arabia. I rather like the name itself (where can I get a t-shirt?), but I wouldn't want to be in charge of such an organization in my school. Unfortunately, the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice are roles that some tech departments have assigned themselves. Heaven knows why.

Wes Fryer, the IT Guy at TechLEARNING.com gets it partially right on his personal blog writing mySpace and iSafety. Bless his heart, Wes does advocate for a least-restrictive environment as the best place to teach kids how to use the Internet. As Carol Simpson likes to say, teaching kids Internet safety in an over-filtered environment is like teaching kids to cross the street by never letting them out of the basement.

But what Wes alludes to, but does not address is who, in the end, makes the decision to block or not bock mySpace or any site on the Internet? He only says:

Whether or not the final decision of the district is to block in-school student access to MySpace.com, these issues must be raised and publicly addressed. 

How?

Some readers may know this is a real pet project of mine - getting every district, with the help of our professional associations, to have formal processes in place to determine what web resources are blocked and which are not. And such a process IS workable. We folks on the tech side, need to quickly determine a means of establishing a process for making choices about whether resources should or should not be blocked - or we are in for a world of hurt. And here's why..

• Today a teacher asks that a game site is blocked. The IT department complies.
• Tomorrow a parent asks that a site on gay marriage, dinosaurs, or a right-wing Christian fundamentalist be blocked.
• The day after that, another parent or teacher asks that those sites be unblocked.

Who is left in the middle?  If we have established a past practice of blocking (or unblocking) any request,  we will always have to block (or unblock) every request AND we will probably be spending an inordinate amount of time doing so. 

The decision of whether to block or not block should be done formally, openly, and in the same way any other material challenge is handled in a school district. Period.

IT folks, you really don't want to be considered  your school's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Don't we have more important jobs to do?