Saturday, February 24, 2007

The Accuracy of Wikipedia

Will Richardson posts in weblogg-ed:
(Via Smart Mobs) So here is a research study (and I mean research, full of all sorts of funny looking formulas and symbols and stuff) about Wikipedia that comes to the conclusion that the more edits there are to a particular article the more accurate it is.

This makes sense to me even though it contradicts the fears of many educators. And it is interesting in relation to something I've recently learned about the Wikipedia founders starting a new venture:

As posted in Accelating Minds:

Wikipedia 2.0

The folks at Wikipedia are launching a new site, Citizendium. It strives to become a more authoritative version of its predecessor, and a boon for us in education. It looks to me like, after registering and signing in, students can still research and then contribute to the pages.

I just wonder if this is really needed. I'm not sure it will be able to get the same kind of traction that Wikipedia already has.

2 comments:

Tom McGee said...

I agree. It's gonna be hard to top what wikipedia has done. The only way it could gain momentum is to do something different, like an added photo display. The one thing Wikipedia hasn't grasped. It'll be interesting to see it emerge!

Ginny DiMedio said...

I think that errors exist everywhere. We have been socialized to believe that commercial sources have credibility. The importance of a site like Wikipedia is that students learn to research, collaborate and publish.