News > September 13, 2007

By Molly Nevola | Senior writer

“Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” greets the Web site. A non-profit venture launched in January 2001, Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in the world, and is written and edited by volunteers. With entries in over 250 different languages, not to mention 1,997,619 articles listed in English, it’s no doubt that Wikipedia is today one of the most popular and continuously growing information sources on the Web.

But does the service have any accountability or place in the world of serious research? Countless universities have explored the validity of the Web site only to find that professors across the nation are split on the Wikipedia debate.

Reports from Harvard University’s newspaper, The Harvard Crimson indicated this past February that some Harvard professors and teaching fellows incorporated Wikipedia into their syllabi.

These professors said that some of the articles were extremely useful for their subjects, and the ease of research on Wikipedia increased the probability that students would complete the assigned reading.But not everyone takes this side of the debate. This past February Wikipedia increased the probability that students would complete the assigned reading.

But not everyone takes this side of the debate.

This past February, after multiple errors on a Japanese history test, Professor Neil Waters of Middlebury College prompted the history department at the college to ban all use of Wikipedia in citations.

The ban did not include the basic usage of the Web site, but simply prohibited the students from using the source for research purposes. Some students responded to the ban by writing opinion articles in the college newspaper, calling it “the beginning of censorship.”

According to a Feb. 21, 2007 article in The New York Times, Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, said that he agreed with the ruling made by Middlebury College.

“Students shouldn’t be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn’t be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either,” he said.

At this university, assistant professor of political science Peter Furia agreed that students should not be using general encyclopedia entries in a bibliography. “While those entries may well contain information that extends beyond what we refer to as ‘common knowledge,’ they’ll always cite the original source of that information when they do,” Furia said.

However, Furia also said that Wikipedia can be particularly useful in his discipline of politics and current events.

“I’m personally fine with the use of Wikipedia as a substitute for traditional encyclopedias – particularly in reference to rapidly-changing political events” he said.

Brian Kell, lecturer in computer science, agreed, and even said that he allows students to cite Wikipedia.

“I do allow students to use Wikipedia as a source in research papers, but only in the same sense that they would use an encyclopedia, dictionary or advice from a friend or professor,” he said.

However, as the Web site has become more popular, Kell said he has to remind students about credible sources.

“I have had to implement a policy that specifically indicates that Wikipedia is not to be used as a credible, authoritative source,” he said.

But Wikipedia dwarfs traditional encyclopedias in size and scope.

One reason for this may be the fact that contributors can edit entries freely at any time, which has led to entries that are less factual and may be altered to suit personal interests and opinions.

Still, this drawback may in fact be Wikipedia’s greatest asset.

Factual errors and vandalism on the Web site are hastily cleaned up by the site’s editors, while entries are constantly updated, providing the public with up-to-date news.

David Coates, professor of political science, said that Wikipedia is like many other sources on the Web, in which one must find other, more scholarly sites to confirm the facts of in the entry.

“I think you do have to be very careful about Wikipedia, because its material is, as I understand it, in no way peer-reviewed,” Coates said.

There have been many steps taken to protect the online encyclopedia.

Recently CNN reported on computer science professor Luca de Alfaro at the University of California-Santa Cruz, who has developed software that colors text orange on the Web site.

The deeper the orange, the more reason to believe it is erroneous. The color system is based on analysis of the reputations of those who edited the information.

Additionally, Wales called for a system that checks into certain contributors who claim to have advanced degrees, such as PhDs and MDs.

Finally, just last year, Wikipedia established a protection system for certain entries.

The New York Times reported that 82 entries are now under a “protected” status, forbidding all editing because of repeated vandalism or disputes about the matters.

The protected entries include Albert Einstein, human rights in China, mail-order brides and Christina Aguilera.

Others, 172 in number, are semi-protected, open to editing only by those who have been registered with the site for more than four days.

Examples of semi-protected entries include George W. Bush, Tony Blair, sex, Islam, Adolf Hitler and Opus Dei.

Some argue that these measures take away from Wikipedia’s democratic nature, but Wales argues that the protection can be temporary and affects only a small percentage of the 1.2 million entries.

“Protection is a tool for quality control, but it hardly defines Wikipedia. What does define Wikipedia is the volunteer community and the open participation,” he said in an article in The New York Times, June 17, 2006.

The Bowman Gray Campus professors have yet to comment on the Facebook group “Wikipedia is helping me get through med school!”