Sunday, May 4, 2008

Professors and Wikipedia

I've been thinking the same thing that this writer discusses here for a while, but he says it much better than I could:

"It is time for the academic world to recognize Wikipedia for what it has become: a global library open to anyone with an Internet connection and a pressing curiosity. The vision of its founders, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, has become reality, and the librarians were right: the world has not been the same since. If the Web is the greatest information delivery device ever, and Wikipedia is the largest coherent store of information and ideas, then we as teachers and scholars should have been on this train years ago for the benefit of our students, our professions, and that mystical pool of human knowledge."

His proposal that all academics with research interests become identifiable editors is interesting, too. I've never been confident enough to even consider it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely agree! And yet, I wasn't able to convince my advisor to let me use Wikipedia as a source in my thesis. Sigh.