Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh/Wikimedia Research
| Title | Author(s) | Abstract | Date | Research Institution | Publication |
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Big data and Wikipedia research: social science knowledge across disciplinary divides (2015)edit |
Ralph Schroeder (Oxford Internet Institute) & Linnet Taylor (University of Amsterdam) | This paper examines research about Wikipedia that has been undertaken using big data approaches. The aim is to gauge the coherence as against the disparateness of studies from different disciplines, how these studies relate to each other, and to research about Wikipedia and new social media in general. The paper is partly based on interviews with big data researchers, and discusses a number of themes and implications of Wikipedia research, including about the workings of online collaboration, the way that contributions mirror (or not) aspects of real-world geographies, and how contributions can be used to predict offline social and economic trends. Among the findings is that in some areas of research, studies build on and extend each other's results. However, most of the studies stay within disciplinary silos and could be better integrated with other research on Wikipedia and with research about new media. Wikipedia is among few sources in big data research where the data are openly available, unlike many studies where data are proprietary. Thus, it has lent itself to a burgeoning and promising body of research. The paper concludes that in order to fulfil this promise, this research must pay more attention to theories and research from other disciplines, and also go beyond questions based narrowly on the availability of data and towards a more powerful analytical grasp of the phenomenon being investigated. 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1008538 | 24 Feb 2015 | Oxford Internet Institute and University of Amsterdam | Information, Communication & Society |
Why Medical Schools Should Embrace Wikipedia (2016)edit |
Azzam, Amin MD, MA; Bresler, David MD, MA; Leon, Armando MD; Maggio, Lauren PhD; Whitaker, Evans MD, MLIS; Heilman, James MD; Orlowitz, Jake; Swisher, Valerie; Rasberry, Lane; Otoide, Kingsley; Trotter, Fred; Ross, Will; McCue, Jack D. MD | Problem: Most medical students use Wikipedia as an information source, yet medical schools do not train students to improve Wikipedia or use it critically.
Approach: Between November 2013 and November 2015, the authors offered fourth-year medical students a credit-bearing course to edit Wikipedia. The course was designed, delivered, and evaluated by faculty, medical librarians, and personnel from WikiProject Medicine, Wikipedia Education Foundation, and Translators Without Borders. The authors assessed the effect of the students' edits on Wikipedia's content, the effect of the course on student participants, and readership of students' chosen articles. Outcomes: Forty-three enrolled students made 1,528 edits (average 36/student), contributing 493,994 content bytes (average 11,488/student). They added higher-quality and removed lower-quality sources for a net addition of 274 references (average 6/student). As of July 2016, none of the contributions of the first 28 students (2013, 2014) have been reversed or vandalized. Students discovered a tension between comprehensiveness and readability/translatability, yet readability of most articles increased. Students felt they improved their articles, enjoyed giving back "specifically to Wikipedia," and broadened their sense of physician responsibilities in the socially networked information era. During only the "active editing months," Wikipedia traffic statistics indicate that the 43 articles were collectively viewed 1,116,065 times. Subsequent to students' efforts, these articles have been viewed nearly 22 million times. Next Steps: If other schools replicate and improve on this initiative, future multi-institution studies could more accurately measure the effect of medical students on Wikipedia, and vice versa. 10.1097/ACM.0000000000001381 |
13 Sept 2016 | University of California | Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges |
Wikipedia and the University, a case study (2012)edit |
Charles Knight (Edge Hill University, Liverpool) & Sam Pryke (Edge Hill University) | This article discusses the use of Wikipedia by academics and students for learning and teaching activities at Liverpool Hope University. Hope has distinctive aspects but we consider the findings to be indicative of Wikipedia use at other British universities. First we discuss general issues of Wikipedia use within the university. Second, we examine existing research on Wikipedia use amongst students and academics. Based upon a sample of 133 academics and 1222 students, our principal findings were: (1) 75% of academics and students use Wikipedia; (2) student use is typically confined to the initial stages of assessments; (3) a quarter of academics provide guidance on how to use Wikipedia and (4) 70% of academics use Wikipedia for background information for teaching purposes, something that it is not influenced by whether student use is tolerated or not. Our conclusion is that whilst Wikipedia is now unofficially integrated into universities, it is not ‘the’ information resource as feared by many and that an enlightened minority of academics have attempted to assimilate it into their teaching. 10.1080/13562517.2012.666734 | 13 Mar 2012 | Edge Hill University, Liverpool. | Teaching in Higher Education |
“You get what you need” : A study of students’ attitudes towards using Wikipedia when doing school assignments (2015)edit |
Marte Blikstad-Balas,
Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo. |
In traditional classrooms, a textbook was often the only source of knowledge available; in stark contrast, today's classrooms have an infinite number of knowledge sources available through the Internet. Nevertheless, a range of studies suggest that students systematically favor Wikipedia in their school-related literacy practices. The present study investigates this tendency among students in upper-secondary school, using a survey with multiple choice and open-ended questions. The main finding suggests that students favor Wikipedia because the site provides them with what they need, being fast, flexible, and easy to use. At the same time, students are aware of credibility issues associated with Wikipedia. A discrepancy between students’ positive attitudes to including Wikipedia in their school-related literacy practices and their teachers’ lack of approval of this knowledge source is discussed.10.16923/reb.v12i1.357 | 25 Aug 2015 | University of Oslo | Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research |
Wikipedia Use in Research: Perceptions in Secondary Schools (2015)edit |
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Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that can be edited by users, is growing both in the number of content articles written as well as the number of registered users. Students rely on Wikipedia (Purcell et al., 2012) and Wikipedia, through tools, is enabling users to make better decisions regarding the information they find (Gray, 2013; Kyrios, 2013; Lamb & Johnson, 2013). However, are teachers and librarians in secondary schools learning to embrace the online encyclopedia? This exploratory study surveyed classroom teachers and librarians/library staff regarding their perceptions of the effects of Wikipedia use by students in research assignments, their perceptions of the need for school policy regarding the use of Wikipedia by students, and regarding their knowledge of the Page Assessment Guide designed to help users judge the reliability of the information on a page. 10.1007/s11528-015-0858-6 | 23 April 2015 | Worcester Preparatory School, Berlin USA; University of Alabama; University of South Alabama. | TechTrends |
“The sum of all human knowledge”: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content of Wikipedia (2014)edit |
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Wikipedia may be the best-developed attempt thus far to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it a point of inquiry for researchers from different fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and its content. However, due to the variety of fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedia's content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer-reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability, and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies. 10.1002/asi.23172 | 2 December 2014 | DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark; Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Finland; Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Employing Wikipedia for good not evil: innovative approaches to collaborative writing assessment (2016)edit |
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Wikipedia is an open educational resource that connects writers and editors to diverse discourse communities around the world. Unwarranted stigma is attached to the use of Wikipedia in higher education due to fears that students will not pursue rigorous research practices because of the easy access to information that Wikipedia facilitates. In studies referred to in this paper, undergraduate writing students are taught about the need to interrogate any information they find on Wikipedia just as they would other online source material. They are inducted into fact checking, editing and creating Wikipedia articles as a means to analyse source material critically and to advance their research, writing and digital literacy. Meanwhile, in a postgraduate course in magazine studies, instead of writing essays, students are promoting Australian magazines and print culture by writing Wikipedia entries about Antipodean magazines and their editors. These courses experiment with new approaches to formative and summative assessment; promote group research, collaborative and participatory writing, writing across networks and negotiating discourse communities; and challenge students’ perceptions about peer review and the legitimacy of Wikipedia.10.1080/02602938.2015.1127322 | 15 Feb 2016 | The University of Sydney, Australia. | Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education |
Wikipedia – challenges and new horizons in enhancing medical education (2015)edit |
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Background
Wikipedia gains growing attention as a provider of health information. This study aimed to investigate the use, relevance and challenges of Wikipedia among medical students. Methods An online questionnaire was made accessible to students at five medical universities in Germany, Austria, and Norway. Besides demographical data, the questions covered the role of Wikipedia in the academic life of medical students. The questionnaire investigated if the students had ever found erroneous medical entries and whether they corrected these. Results A frequent use of Wikipedia in general is statistically significant correlated with a frequent use in medical studies (p < 0.001). Information retrieved from Wikipedia is predominantly critically appraised either by comparing it to profound knowledge (79%) and/or to specific literature (75%). Despite most (97%) respondents disclosed that they already had found false information in Wikipedia, recognized errors were seldomly corrected (~20%). Conclusions The information retrieved from Wikipedia is critically appraised. However, we found shortcomings in handling erroneous entries. We argue for professional responsibility among medical students in dealing with this dynamic resource. Moreover, we encourage medical schools to supplement information to Wikipedia to further benefit from the vast possibilities of this platform. DOI: 10.1186/s12909-015-0309-2 |
6 March 2015 | Dermatologikum Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany; Department of Ophthalmology, University Medical Centre
Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany; Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria; Department of Orthopaedics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria. |
BMC Medical Education |
Accuracy and readability of cardiovascular entries on Wikipedia: are they reliable learning resources for medical students? (2015)edit |
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Objective To evaluate accuracy of content and readability level of English Wikipedia articles on cardiovascular diseases, using quality and readability tools.
Methods Wikipedia was searched on the 6 October 2013 for articles on cardiovascular diseases. Using a modified DISCERN (DISCERN is an instrument widely used in assessing online resources), articles were independently scored by three assessors. The readability was calculated using Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. The inter-rater agreement between evaluators was calculated using the Fleiss κ scale. Results This study was based on 47 English Wikipedia entries on cardiovascular diseases. The DISCERN scores had a median=33 (IQR=6). Four articles (8.5%) were of good quality (DISCERN score 40–50), 39 (83%) moderate (DISCERN 30–39) and 4 (8.5%) were poor (DISCERN 10–29). Although the entries covered the aetiology and the clinical picture, there were deficiencies in the pathophysiology of diseases, signs and symptoms, diagnostic approaches and treatment. The number of references varied from 1 to 127 references; 25.9±29.4 (mean±SD). Several problems were identified in the list of references and citations made in the articles. The readability of articles was 14.3±1.7 (mean±SD); consistent with the readability level for college students. In comparison, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine 18th edition had more tables, less references and no significant difference in number of graphs, images, illustrations or readability level. The overall agreement between the evaluators was good (Fleiss κ 0.718 (95% CI 0.57 to 0.83). Conclusions The Wikipedia entries are not aimed at a medical audience and should not be used as a substitute to recommended medical resources. Course designers and students should be aware that Wikipedia entries on cardiovascular diseases lack accuracy, predominantly due to errors of omission. Further improvement of the Wikipedia content of cardiovascular entries would be needed before they could be considered a supplementary resource. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008187 |
6 October 2015 | Department of Medical Education, Curriculum Development and Research Unit, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. | BMJ Open |
The Elephant in the Room: A Place for Wikipedia in Higher Education? (2012)edit |
Hilde Brox | The article departs from a pilot survey among Norwegian teacher students that maps their usage, skills and attitudes in relation to the web based encyclopedia Wikipedia. The survey shows that the students are heavy users of Wikipedia content yet show a low level of knowledge as to how content is constructed or the ways in which Wikipedia differs from traditional, paper-based encyclopedias. The students also express little interest in partaking in creating content or maintaining the site. The second part of the article argues that a way to remedy both lack of knowledge and interest among students is to bring Wikipedia actively into the classrooms and enable students to take part in creating and maintaining Wikipedia content. This way, Wikipedia may serve as an effective tool with which to address and enhance a range of central 21st century skills. 10.7557/13.2377 | 01 Jan 2012 | University of Tromsø | Medier, kultur og samfunn |
Giving Psychology Away: Implementation of Wikipedia Editing in an Introductory Human Development Course (2016)edit |
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To test the feasibility of Wikipedia editing in large undergraduate psychology classrooms, we engaged groups of students in a large introductory-level Human Development course (N = 110) in editing Wikipedia articles to improve psychology-related content. Students attended in-class workshops and received online support to develop skills. They demonstrated considerable engagement with the assignment, averaging 14.5 posts to Wikipedia over a span of 50 days. Most connected Wikipedia editing with other course materials and reported benefits of peer-evaluating classmates’ work. Most reported beneficial interactions with Wikipedians in the public domain, who flagged and/or reverted edits of dubious quality, while correcting errors. Students demonstrated improvements in information literacy and Wikipedia knowledge, with gains in locating and evaluating the quality of source materials. DOI: 10.1177/1475725716653081 | 27 June 2016 | The College of Staten Island, CUNY, USA. The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA. | Psychology Learning & Teaching |
Improving Science Education and Understanding through Editing Wikipedia (2010)edit |
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This paper describes a graduate-level class project centered on editing chemistry-related entries in Wikipedia. This project enables students to work collaboratively, explore advanced concepts in chemistry, and learn how to communicate science to a diverse audience, including the general public. The format and structure of the project is outlined and assessment metrics are discussed. A panel survey of current students provided an evaluation of the effectiveness of this project in contributing to the learning objectives of the course. Last, a discussion of the challenges involved in implementing this project is provided. DOI: 10.1021/ed100367v | 23 August 2010 | Department of Chemistry and Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. | Journal of Chemical Education |
A classifier to determine which Wikipedia biographies will be accepted (2014)edit |
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Wikipedia, like other encyclopedias, includes biographies of notable people. However, because it is jointly written by many contributors, it is subject to constant manipulation by contributors attempting to add biographies of non-notable people. Over time, Wikipedia has developed inclusion criteria for notable people (e.g., receiving a significant award) based on which newly contributed biographies are evaluated. In this paper we present and analyze a set of simple indicators that can be used to predict which article will eventually be accepted. These indicators do not refer to the content itself, but to meta-content features (such as the number of categories that the biography is associated with) and to author-based features (such as if it is a first-time author). By training a classifier on these features, we successfully reached a high predictive performance (area under the receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve [AUC] of 0.97) even though we overlooked the actual biography text. DOI: 10.1002/asi.23199 | 16 April 2014 | Department of Information Systems Engineering, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel. | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Using Wikipedia to Teach Audience, Genre and Collaboration (2016)edit |
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This essay describes a sequence of assignments to guide students though an informed effort at making contributions to Wikipedia that persist, and suggests ways this set of exercises in social informatics may also serve a number of common goals in a variety of writing, literature, and other courses: analyzing and writing for explicit editorial guidelines (“standards” in information science; “house style” in editorial practice); understanding, conforming to, and even negotiating conventions of genres and subgenres; collaborating online; writing for an audience that is not only real but talks back; and developing deep understanding of revision and the writing, editorial, and publication processes. Students first learn Wikipedia policies and practices and analyze the historical development of articles before they make contributions. The pedagogical opportunities arguably outweigh the concerns of those who doubt the credibility of an open-authored encyclopedia. Link | 16 March 2016 | University of Illinois | Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to
Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture |
Using Wikipedia To Develop Students’ Critical Analysis Skills in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum (2011)edit |
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Wikipedia represents a revolution in the way knowledge is communicated and a potential threat to traditional encyclopedias. Wikipedia is widely used as a reference in academic assignments. Unfortunately, for the neophyte, it may be hard to assess the completeness and the accuracy of a contribution to Wikipedia. In this article, we describe an assignment to show students how to read a Wikipedia scientific article critically and how to correct it appropriately, if necessary. The assignment has proven to be beneficial to the students while demonstrating how to analyze, understand, and write a contribution to Wikipedia. DOI: 10.1021/ed100017k | 10 May 2011 | Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, 3200 Chemin de la Côte Ste-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. | Journal of Chemical Education |
Faculty perception of Wikipedia in the California State University System (2015)edit |
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Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore whether faculty perceptions of Wikipedia have changed over a five-year period. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted of four universities in the California State University System – California State University, East Bay; Humboldt State University; Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; and California State University, Fresno. Following the survey, respondents who volunteered their contact information were interviewed about their perceptions and/or their assignments/projects involving Wikipedia. Findings – The study showed that, overall, faculty perceptions of Wikipedia have shifted in Wikipedia’s favor and that some faculty members create interesting and unique assignments that involve Wikipedia or Wikipedia-like work. Research limitations/implications – This study sampled 4 of 23 campuses in the California State University System. Practical implications – The growing acceptance of Wikipedia has implications for course work with students both in terms of assignments in the discipline and also for the need to ensure students understand how to evaluate sources. Social implications – The shift to Wikipedia is symptomatic of the larger shift to non-traditional research tools. Originality/value – The literature discussing faculty perceptions of Wikipedia has not discussed whether faculty perceptions are shifting. 10.1108/NLW-08-2014-0096 |
01 Jan 2015 | University Libraries, California State University, East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA. | New Library World |
Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders: A systematic review of scholarly research on Wikipedia readers and readership (2014)edit |
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Hundreds of scholarly studies have investigated various aspects of Wikipedia. Although a number of literature reviews have provided overviews of this vast body of research, none has specifically focused on the readers of Wikipedia and issues concerning its readership. In this systematic literature review, we review 99 studies to synthesize current knowledge regarding the readership of Wikipedia and provide an analysis of research methods employed. The scholarly research has found that Wikipedia is popular not only for lighter topics such as entertainment but also for more serious topics such as health and legal information. Scholars, librarians, and students are common users, and Wikipedia provides a unique opportunity for educating students in digital literacy. We conclude with a summary of key findings, implications for researchers, and implications for the Wikipedia community. DOI: 10.1002/asi.23162 | 8 July 2014 | John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Oulun yliopisto, Finland. | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Profiling vandalism in Wikipedia: A Schauerian approach to justification (2016)edit |
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In order to fight massive vandalism the English-language Wikipedia has developed a system of surveillance which is carried out by humans and bots, supported by various tools. Central to the selection of edits for inspection is the process of using filters or profiles. Can this profiling be justified? On the basis of a careful reading of Frederick Schauer’s books about rules in general (1991) and profiling in particular (2003) I arrive at several conclusions. The effectiveness, efficiency, and risk-aversion of edit selection all greatly increase as a result. The argument for increasing predictability suggests making all details of profiling manifestly public. Also, a wider distribution of the more sophisticated anti-vandalism tools seems indicated. As to the specific dimensions used in profiling, several critical remarks are developed. When patrollers use ‘assisted editing’ tools, severe ‘overuse’ of several features (anonymity, warned before) is a definite possibility, undermining profile efficacy. The easy remedy suggested is to render all of them invisible on the interfaces as displayed to patrollers. Finally, concerning not only assisted editing tools but tools against vandalism generally, it is argued that the anonymity feature is a sensitive category: anons have been in dispute for a long time (while being more prone to vandalism). Targeting them as a special category violates the social contract upon which Wikipedia is based. The feature is therefore a candidate for mandatory ‘underuse’: it should be banned from all anti-vandalism filters and profiling algorithms, and no longer be visible as a special edit trait. DOI:10.1007/s10676-016-9399-8 | 30 April 2016 | University of Groningen, Groningen,The Netherlands. | Ethics and Information Technology |
Wikipedia and Psychology: Coverage of Concepts and Its Use by Undergraduate Students (2008)edit |
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The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is a frequently referred-to source of information for Internet users. A series of 3 studies examined Wikipedia's coverage of psychology-related concepts, examined how accessible Wikipedia's psychology content is when using Internet search engines, and described how both first-year and senior undergraduates use Wikipedia. The results demonstrated that Wikipedia's coverage of psychological topics was comprehensive and prominently displayed on the major search engines. In addition, a majority of undergraduate students reported referring to Wikipedia for both personal and school-related activities; however, few students reported using Wikipedia as a formal reference in academic work. 10.1080/00986280802004594 | 18 Apr 2008 | Arizona State University. | Teaching of Psychology |
Digital Divisions of Labor and Informational Magnetism: Mapping Participation in Wikipedia (2015)edit |
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There are now more than 3 billion Internet users on our planet. The connections afforded to all of those people, in theory, allow for an unprecedented amount of communication and public participation. The goal of this article is to examine how those potentials match up to actual patterns of participation. By focusing on Wikipedia, the world's largest and most used repository of user-generated content, we are able to gain important insights into the geographies of voice and participation. This article shows that the relative democratization of the Internet has not brought about a concurrent democratization of voice and participation. Despite the fact that it is widely used around the world, Wikipedia is characterized by highly uneven geographies of participation. The goal of highlighting these inequalities is not to suggest that they are insurmountable. Our regression analysis shows that the availability of broadband is a clear factor in the propensity of people to participate on Wikipedia. The relationship is not a linear one, though. As a country approaches levels of connectivity above about 450,000 broadband Internet connections, the ability of broadband access to positively affect participation keeps increasing. Complicating this issue is the fact that participation from the world's economic peripheries tends to focus on editing about the world's cores rather than their own local regions. These results ultimately point to an informational magnetism that is cast by the world's economic cores, virtuous and vicious cycles that make it difficult to reconfigure networks and hierarchies of knowledge production. 10.1080/00045608.2015.1072791 | 04 Sep 2015 | Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. | Annals of the Association of American Geographers |
Exploring the Cautionary Attitude Toward Wikipedia in Higher Education: Implications for Higher Education Institutions (2013)edit |
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This article presents the research findings of a small-scale study which aimed to explore the cautionary attitude toward the use of Wikipedia in the process of learning. A qualitative case study approach was taken, using literature review, institutional documentation, and semi-structured interviews with five members of academic teaching staff from a UK Business School. Analysis found the reasons for the cautionary attitude were due to a lack of understanding of Wikipedia, a negative attitude toward collaborative knowledge produced outside academia, and the perceived detrimental effects of the use of Web 2.0 applications not included in the university suite. 10.1080/13614533.2012.740439 | 04 Feb 2013 | INTO UEA London, UK. | New Review of Academic Librarianship |
NWSA Initiative Tackles Wikipedia Gender Gap (2016)edit |
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“Wikipedia,” writes Kat Stoeffel at The Cut, “bears one of the starkest gender gaps in contemporary culture—less than 15 percent of its editors are women.” In 2013, The Atlantic reported that the gender discrepancy is worse with the top editors, who are 90% men and 10% women. Wikipedia is also aware of the serious gender imbalance of their volunteer editors. The popular online encyclopedia formed the Gender Gap Task Force in 2013 to try to address the “problems women face on Wikipedia” both as editors and as the subjects of articles.... DOI: 10.1002/whe.20310 | 2 May 2016 | Women in Higher Education | |
How and why do college students use Wikipedia? (2009)edit |
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The purposes of this study were to explore college students' perceptions, uses of, and motivations for using Wikipedia, and to understand their information behavior concerning Wikipedia based on social cognitive theory (SCT). A Web survey was used to collect data in the spring of 2008. The study sample consisted of students from an introductory undergraduate course at a large public university in the midwestern United States. A total of 134 students participated in the study, resulting in a 32.8% response rate. The major findings of the study include the following: Approximately one-third of the students reported using Wikipedia for academic purposes. The students tended to use Wikipedia for quickly checking facts and finding background information. They had positive past experiences with Wikipedia; however, interestingly, their perceptions of its information quality were not correspondingly high. The level of their confidence in evaluating Wikipedia's information quality was, at most, moderate. Respondents' past experience with Wikipedia, their positive emotional state, their disposition to believe information in Wikipedia, and information utility were positively related to their outcome expectations of Wikipedia. However, among the factors affecting outcome expectations, only information utility and respondents' positive emotions toward Wikipedia were related to their use of it. Further, when all of the independent variables, including the mediator, outcome expectations, were considered, only the variable information utility was related to Wikipedia use, which may imply a limited applicability of SCT to understanding Wikipedia use. However, more empirical evidence is needed to determine the applicability of this theory to Wikipedia use. Finally, this study supports the knowledge value of Wikipedia (Fallis, 2008), despite students' cautious attitudes toward Wikipedia. The study suggests that educators and librarians need to provide better guidelines for using Wikipedia, rather than prohibiting Wikipedia use altogether. DOI: 10.1002/asi.21142 | 6 July 2009 | Library and Information Science, St. Catherine University, 2004 Randolph Avenue, #4125. St. Paul, MN 55105 | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Rethinking Wikipedia for the Classroom (2014)edit |
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Sociologist Piotr Konieczny focuses on the issue of Wikipedia’s reception in the world of academia: in the background of slowly growing acceptance of it as an educational tool, why is a significant portion of the researchers and instructors still uneasy with it? DOI: 10.1177/1536504214522017 | 01 Jan 2014 | Hanyang University | Contexts |
Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media (2016)edit |
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Altmetrics is an emergent research area whereby social media is applied as a source of metrics to assess scholarly impact. In the last few years, the interest in altmetrics has grown, giving rise to many questions regarding their potential benefits and challenges. This paper aims to address some of these questions. First, we provide an overview of the altmetrics landscape, comparing tool features, social media data sources, and social media events provided by altmetric aggregators. Second, we conduct a systematic review of the altmetrics literature. A total of 172 articles were analysed, revealing a steady rise in altmetrics research since 2011. Third, we analyse the results of over 80 studies from the altmetrics literature on two major research topics: cross-metric validation and coverage of altmetrics. An aggregated percentage coverage across studies on 11 data sources shows that Mendeley has the highest coverage of about 59 % across 15 studies. A meta-analysis across more than 40 cross-metric validation studies shows overall a weak correlation (ranging from 0.08 to 0.5) between altmetrics and citation counts, confirming that altmetrics do indeed measure a different kind of research impact, thus acting as a complement rather than a substitute to traditional metrics. Finally, we highlight open challenges and issues facing altmetrics and discuss future research areas. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-2077-0 | 10 Aug 2016 | Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. | Scientometrics |
Teaching with Wikipedia in a 21st-century classroom: Perceptions of Wikipedia and its educational benefits (2016)edit |
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This article explores the current perception of Wikipedia in academia, focusing on both the reasons for its unpopularity among some and the reasons for its growing acceptance among others. First, the reasons that Wikipedia is still struggling to gain acceptance among many academics and higher education professionals are identified. These include common misconceptions about Wikipedia, doubts about its quality, uneasiness with the challenge that it poses to the traditional peer-review system, and a lack of career-enhancing motivations related to using Wikipedia. Second, the benefits of teaching with Wikipedia for educators, students, and the wider society, as discussed in the current teaching literature, are explored. Finally, the article presents an argument for using Wikipedia in a variety of ways to help students develop critical and academic writing skills. DOI: 10.1002/asi.23616 | 15 Mar 2016 | Hanyang University ERICA Campus, Department of Information Sociology, Sangnok-gu Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, Korea. | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Improving Information Literacy Skills through Learning To Use and Edit Wikipedia: A Chemistry Perspective (2015)edit |
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Our students rely on Wikipedia on their mobile devices or laptops, since it is an extremely rich and broad resource. This article overviews the Chemistry content on Wikipedia and how students can learn to use it effectively as an information resource, critically evaluating content, and learning key information literacy skills. We also discuss how students’ information literacy skills can be improved through a class project where students edit Wikipedia articles. Through such projects, students may begin to appreciate where and how chemical information is generated, gathered, developed, and shared in the real world. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00525 | 22 Dec 2015 | Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Potsdam, United States. Shapiro Science Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States. | Journal of Chemical Education |
Wikipedia and undergraduate research trajectories (2015)edit |
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Purpose
– The purpose of this paper was to analyze undergraduate students’ use of Wikipedia bibliographies. The study has implications for Wikipedia as a “discovery tool” of library collections, library instructional practices and understanding the complex ecology of students’ research processes. Design/methodology/approach – Thirty undergraduate students were recruited from introductory English writing classes. A controlled survey was conducted in Qualtrics®, including the following sections: pre and post test of students’ understanding of authority/quality of sources; tasks analyzing participants’ choices for further research after reading a Wikipedia article; and students’ determination of the authority/quality of sources in Wikipedia reference pages, using an adapted version of the Turnitin® Source Educational Evaluation Rubric. Findings – The investigator found that students were unlikely to follow references they found in bibliographies of Wikipedia pages, unless instructed to do so. This was expressed most clearly in their comments, which revealed that Wikipedia’s reference sections are found to be too overwhelming and numerous. These entries are depicted by order of appearance in the text and are not ranked, or presented in an order students considered useful. Participants were not likely to use Wikipedia as a discovery tool of library content because they perceived Wikipedia as being markedly different, even in opposition to, library resources. Students disclosed being warned by their faculty and instructors not to use the online encyclopedia at all in their research process. However, paradoxically, after reading a Wikipedia article, students were most likely to go to Google, or revisit Wikipedia, for more information, as opposed to using the library. Study participants reported that “ease of access” is the most important consideration when choosing sources to include in research papers, followed by the actual authority/quality of these sources. Students also greatly benefited from having a structured rubric available at the point of their research process when they are asked to determine the authority/quality of sources, and especially within Wikipedia bibliographies. Research limitations/implications – This is a small-scale study of students’ use of Wikipedia in one university campus, but its results can spark a discussion of the larger question of undergraduates’ research trajectories. The findings of the study suggest that these trajectories are extremely influenced by two conflicting issues: faculty influence and resource convenience. The researchers plan to extend the study to include faculty’s perceptions of the value of Wikipedia to undergraduate students’ research, including faculty’s own involvement as Wikipedia editors and contributors. Future research of undergraduate’s use of Wikipedia could benefit from a greater recruitment of participants across a diverse pool of academic institutions, as well as a mixed research method of observation, task analysis and interviews. Practical implications – The findings of the study offer suggestions for both the design aspect of Wikipedia and the instructional methods of academic librarians. This study also informs library practices and emerging collaborations with Wikipedia, specifically the “Wikipedian in Residence” program and the concept of using Wikipedia as one type of a discovery tool. Originality/value – There is a lack of empirical evidence showing how or if students use Wikipedia bibliographies to continue their research. The possibility of the online encyclopedia as a discovery tool for library collections is relatively unknown and unexplored. The topic of collaboration between Wikipedia and libraries is new and emerging in the field. 10.1108/NLW-07-2014-0086 |
09 Mar 2015 | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. | New Library World |
First Women, Second Sex: Gender Bias in Wikipedia (2015)edit |
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Contributing to the writing of history has never been as easy as it is today. Anyone with access to the Web is able to play a part on Wikipedia, an open and free encyclopedia, and arguably one of the primary sources of knowledge on the Web. In this paper, we study gender bias in Wikipedia in terms of how women and men are characterized in their biographies. To do so, we analyze biographical content in three aspects: meta-data, language, and network structure. Our results show that, indeed, there are differences in characterization and structure. Some of these differences are reflected from the off-line world documented by Wikipedia, but other differences can be attributed to gender bias in Wikipedia content. We contextualize these differences in social theory and discuss their implications for Wikipedia policy. DOI:10.1145/2700171.2791036 | 01 Jan 2015 | Telefónica I+D, Santiago, Chile. Yahoo Labs, London, United Kingdom. Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. | Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Hypertext & Social Media |
An Evaluation of Wikipedia as a Resource for Patient Education in Nephrology (2013)edit |
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Wikipedia, a multilingual online encyclopedia, is a common starting point for patient medical searches. As its articles can be authored and edited by anyone worldwide, the credibility of the medical content of Wikipedia has been openly questioned. Wikipedia medical articles have also been criticized as too advanced for the general public. This study assesses the comprehensiveness, reliability, and readability of nephrology articles on Wikipedia. The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related problems, 10th Edition (ICD-10) diagnostic codes for nephrology (N00–N29.8) were used as a topic list to investigate the English Wikipedia database. Comprehensiveness was assessed by the proportion of ICD-10 codes that had corresponding articles. Reliability was measured by both the number of references per article and proportion of references from substantiated sources. Finally, readability was assessed using three validated indices (Flesch-Kincaid grade level, Automated readability index, and Flesch reading ease). Nephrology articles on Wikipedia were relatively comprehensive, with 70.5% of ICD-10 codes being represented. The articles were fairly reliable, with 7.1 ± 9.8 (mean ± SD) references per article, of which 59.7 ± 35.0% were substantiated references. Finally, all three readability indices determined that nephrology articles are written at a college level. Wikipedia is a comprehensive and fairly reliable medical resource for nephrology patients that is written at a college reading level. Accessibility of this information for the general public may be improved by hosting it at alternative Wikipedias targeted at a lower reading level, such as the Simple English Wikipedia. DOI:10.1111/sdi.12059 | 22 Feb 2013 | Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Department of Medicine, Northwick Park Hospital, London, United Kingdom. | Seminars in Dialysis |
Wiki course builder: A system for retrieving and sequencing didactic materials from Wikipedia (2015)edit |
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The designing and delivering of a new online course is a crucial task for teachers that have to face two main problems: building, or retrieving, and sequencing learning materials. Retrieving learning materials requires a great effort and a waste of time, while sequencing them requires an accurate didactic project. On the other hand, thanks to the Internet, teachers and instructional designers today can search and retrieve learning materials from Learning Objects Repositories freely available on the Web, such as Mertlot or Ariadne. In this paper we investigate the possibility of using the Wikipedia free encyclopedia, that is the biggest repository of educational material which is visited daily by about sixty million people with its 49 millions of registered people. It is a matter of facts that teachers consult this encyclopedia to arrange, integrate or enrich their courses. So here we propose a system, now at its early stage of development, aiming at supporting teachers to build courses basing on Wikipedia only. The system retrieves learning materials form Wikipedia and sequences them on the basis of the links embedded in the Wikipedia HTML pages, following a course building process based on the Grasha teaching styles and on a social didactic approach. A first questionnaire has been submitted to a sample of teachers with encouraging results. DOI:10.1109/ITHET.2015.7218041 | 24 August 2015 | Dept. of Eng., Roma Tre Univ., Rome, Italy. | International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2015 |
Research Faux Pas: The Stigma of Wikipedia (2015)edit |
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Imagine, if you will, hosting a research party and inviting all of the major databases. Everyone who's anyone would be there. The EBSCOhost collection would show up as the popular trust-fund kids who become trendsetters. They drive the fully featured cars with all the bells and whistles. They name-drop famous researchers and scientists as if they've been friends forever. JSTOR arrives wearing a top hat and a monocle, peppering conversations with primary accounts of adventures in the humanities. ScienceDirect and CINAHL would be engaged in deep conversations about global warming and vaccination research. Lexis/Nexis would be making small talk about current events and legal dramas that are unfolding in world news. Then Wikipedia shows up to this party and suddenly the room goes silent. Web of Science won't even make eye contact with him. “Who invited this imposter?” whispers one of the ProQuest databases. The agitation is almost tangible.... 10.1080/01639269.2015.1062587 | 28 Aug 2015 | San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA. | Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian |
Do We Still Need Reference Services in the Age of Google and Wikipedia? (2016)edit |
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With the continuing development of web resources and Internet search utilities, the role of reference services is changing in the modern library. Traditional ready reference is in decline, but the need for broad-based research support will continue for the foreseeable future. As librarians adapt to the evolving research environment, libraries are experimenting with alternative models of reference services. Far-reaching calls to adopt one model or abandon another, such as the traditional reference desk, are off target given that each library must adapt to its own local situation and determine how best to serve its constituents. 10.1080/02763877.2015.1134377 | 23 Feb 2016 | University of the Sciences, Philadelphia, USA. | The Reference Librarian |
Wikipedia at university: what faculty think and do about it (2015)edit |
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Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate university faculty perceptions and practices of using Wikipedia as a teaching resource. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on a large survey to all faculty members in two large public universities. A total of 913 valid responses were collected through an online questionnaire with 9 control variables and 41 Likert-scaled questions. Findings – The results do not support an overwhelming sceptical attitude among faculty towards Wikipedia. The overall quality of Wikipedia articles is highly valued and most faculty are regular users, just as students are. Though most faculty show a positive view on the teaching usefulness of Wikipedia, few of them actually use it for teaching purposes. A certain conflict has been detected between standard academic procedures of knowledge building and the open collaborative model on which Wikipedia rests. In the end, two important factors play a role in shaping faculty views: their colleagues’ perceived opinions and practices, and academic disciplines. Research limitations/implications – The survey has only been conducted in two universities. More institutions are needed to broaden the scope. Originality/value – The authors have gathered a greater number of answers than those collected in previous studies. The questionnaire is also very extensive. The survey has been addressed to all faculty members at one online university and at one standard brick-and-mortar university.10.1108/EL-12-2013-0217 |
21 July 2015 | Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. | The Electronic Library |
Bridging the gap between Wikipedia and Academia (2016)edit |
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In this opinion piece, we would like to present a short literature review of perceptions and reservations towards Wikipedia in academia, address the common questions about overall reliability of Wikipedia entries, review the actual practices of Wikipedia usage in academia, and conclude with possible scenarios for a peaceful coexistence. Because Wikipedia is a regular topic of JASIST publications (Lim, 2009; Meseguer-Artola, Aibar, Lladós, Minguillón, & Lerga, 2015; Mesgari, Okoli, Mehdi, Nielsen, & Lanamäki, 2015; Okoli, Mehdi, Mesgari, Nielsen, & Lanamäki, 2014), we hope to start a useful discussion with the right audience. DOI: 10.1002/asi.23691 | 4 April 2016 | Kozminski University, Poland. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Teachers' use of Wikipedia with their Students (2015)edit |
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One of the most impressive phenomena in the creation and dissemination of human knowledge in recent years is Wikipedia, an encyclopedia written collaboratively by Web users. Nevertheless, teachers tend to oppose the use of wikipedia by their students and question its reliability. This paper explore the perceptions of k-12 school teachers in Israel towards the quality of the information in wikipedia and the reasoning they hold for these perceptions. Findings show that most of the teachers perceive Wikipedia as an environment of middling to poor reliability, accuracy, and timeliness. Many teachers do not realize how authoritative information is when generated by “wisdom of crowds” and interpret it as unacceptable and untrustworthy. DOI: 10.14221/ajte.2015v40n12.9 | 01 Jan 2015 | Holon Institute of Technology | The Australian Journal of Teacher Education |
Factors that Influence Undergraduate Information-seeking Behavior and Opportunities for Student Success (2016)edit |
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Informed from a survey we administered to undergraduate students on their information seeking behavior, we identify variables that influence how students conduct their search for sources, what types of sources they select, and what attributes of their sources they value. These variables relate to student academic characteristics, demographics, and actions that have been taken by instructors and library staff. With a thorough understanding of students' information seeking process and its influences, we find opportunities for instructors and librarians to have a positive influence. 10.1016/j.acalib.2016.04.007 | 01 July 2016 | University of Wisconsin | The Journal of Academic Librarianship |
Wikipedians reach out to academics (2015)edit |
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Wikipedia is among the most frequently visited websites in the world, and one of the most popular places to tap into the world’s scientific and medical information. But scientists themselves are generally wary of it, because it can be edited by anyone, regardless of their level of expertise. At a meeting in London last week, the non-profit website’s volunteer editors reached out to scientists to enlist their help and to bridge the gap between the online encyclopaedia and the research community.
“A lot of academics have the impression that because anyone can edit, that means it’s a Wild West,” says Martin Poulter at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, UK, and an organizer of the meeting. “But Wikipedia is a community of ultra-pedants who care about facts being right.”.... Wikipedians reach out to academics |
7 Sep 2015 | Nature | http://www.nature.com/ |
Factors that influence the teaching use of Wikipedia in higher education (2015)edit |
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A key impact the Internet is having on university teaching involves the new choices being provided because of open educational content. Wikipedia is a clear example of these new options. It is a gigantic open repository of knowledge, and it can also be considered a platform that facilitates collaboration in knowledge creation and dissemination. Our research objective is to understand what the main factors are that influence the teaching uses of Wikipedia among university faculty. Based on a technology acceptance model, and using data from a survey sent to all faculty members of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, we analyze the relationships within the internal and external constructs of the model. We found that both the perception of colleagues' opinions about Wikipedia and the perceived quality of the information in Wikipedia play a central role. These two constructs have a significant direct impact on the perceived usefulness of Wikipedia. This perceived usefulness affects, mediated by the behavioral intention of using Wikipedia, the effective use behavior of the encyclopedia. The degree to which an individual considers it is important to participate in open collaborative environments and the Web 2.0 profile of the faculty members also play an important role in our model. DOI:10.1002/asi.23488 | 11 February 2015 | Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya UOC, Barcelona, Spain. | Association for Information Science and Technology. |
Beyond the Book: Linking Books to Wikipedia (2015)edit |
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The book translation market is a topic of interest in literary studies, but the reasons why a book is selected for translation are not well understood. The "Beyond the Book" project investigates whether web resources like Wikipedia can be used to establish the level of cultural bias. This work describes the eScience tools used to estimate the cultural appeal of a book: semantic linking is used to identify key words in the text of the book, and afterwards the revision information from corresponding Wikipedia articles is examined to identify countries that generated a more than average amount of contributions to those articles. Comparison between the number of contributions from two countries on the same set of articles may show with which knowledge the contributors are familiar. We assume a lack of contributions from a country may indicate a gap in the knowledge of readers from that country. We assume that a book dealing with that concept could be more exotic and therefore more appealing for certain readers, while others are therefore less interested in the book. An indication of the 'level of exoticness' thus could help a reader/publisher to decide to read/translate the book or not. Experimental results are presented for four selected books from a set of 564 books written in Dutch or translated into Dutch, assessing their potential appeal for a Canadian audience. A qualitative assessment of quantitative results provides insight into named entities that may indicate a high/low cultural bias towards a book. DOI: 10.1109/eScience.2015.12 | 26 October 2015 | Netherlands eScience Centre, Netherlands. | IEEE 11th International Conference on e-Science (e-Science), 2015 |
Students' use of Wikipedia as an academic resource — Patterns of use and perceptions of usefulness (2016)edit |
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Wikipedia is now an established information source in contemporary society. With initial fears over its detrimental influence on scholarship and study habits now subsiding, this paper investigates what part Wikipedia plays in the academic lives of undergraduate students. The paper draws upon survey data gathered from students across two universities in Australia (n = 1658), alongside follow-up group interview data from a subsample of 35 students. Analysis of this data suggests that Wikipedia is now an embedded feature of most students' study, although to a lesser extent than other online information sources such as YouTube and Facebook. For the most part, Wikipedia was described as an introductory and/or supplementary source of information — providing initial orientation and occasional clarification on study topics. While 87.5% of students reported using Wikipedia, it was seen to be of limited usefulness when compared with university-provided library resources, e-books, learning management systems, lecture recordings and academic literature databases. These findings were notably patterned in terms of students' gender, year of study, first language spoken and subject of study. 10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.08.004 | 01 January 2016 | Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. School of Education, Durham University, UK. | The Internet and Higher Education |
Wikipedia in Education: Acculturation and learning in virtual communities (2015)edit |
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The present study investigates on the learning impact of utilizing Wikipedia's community in education. Today, many instructors assign their students editing Wikipedia's articles as part of their coursework. Participation in a cyber-community during an educational assignment exposes students to a brand new culture and netiquette, to a set of explicit and tacit rules and cultural norms. This requires students to internalize the embedded online culture in order to join the community — a form of acculturation which may cause stress, but which can lead to opportunities for growth, learning and development. By taking advantage of a virtual community, educators can literally bring a whole thriving community into their classrooms. The acculturation of the educational group into the culture of a hosting virtual community, through collaborative actions, conflicts and disturbances, results to the formation of a collective zone of proximal development: what the students' group manages to perform today with the aid of the community's members will be performed independently tomorrow. The formation of a virtual learning community through the procedural and structural coupling of two discrete activity systems opens a new space for participatory learning. 10.1016/j.lcsi.2015.07.002 | 01 Dec 2015 | Panteion University, Department of Psychology, Athens, Greece. University of Crete, Department of Psychology, Greece. | Learning, Culture and Social Interaction |
Academic opinions of Wikipedia and Open Access publishing (2014)edit |
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Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine academics’ awareness of and attitudes towards Wikipedia and Open Access journals for academic publishing to better understand the perceived benefits and challenges of these models. Design/methodology/approach – Bases for analysis include comparison of the models, enumeration of their advantages and disadvantages, and investigation of Wikipedia's web structure in terms of potential for academic publishing. A web survey was administered via department-based invitations and listservs. Findings – The survey results show that: Wikipedia has perceived advantages and challenges in comparison to the Open Access model; the academic researchers’ increased familiarity is associated with increased comfort with these models; and the academic researchers’ attitudes towards these models are associated with their familiarity, academic environment, and professional status. Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of the study is sample size. The result of a power analysis with GPower shows that authors could only detect big effects in this study at statistical power 0.95. The authors call for larger sample studies that look further into this topic. Originality/value – This study contributes to the increasing interest in adjusting methods of creating and disseminating academic knowledge by providing empirical evidence of the academics’ experiences and attitudes towards the Open Access and Wikipedia publishing models. This paper provides a resource for researchers interested in scholarly communication and academic publishing, for research librarians, and for the academic community in general. 10.1108/OIR-04-2013-0062 |
29 April 2014 | Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. | Online Information Review |