News: Making Wikis Work for Scholars - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views
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Others, noting features of the Web site that contribute to inaccuracies and shortchange the value of expertise, are building variations on the model that are more amenable to academics and to peer review.
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"I use Wikipedia a lot for my own research and for course preparation. Often, to the extent that [Wikipedia articles] appear on my syllabi it’s to give students a quick overview of a subject or concept when I’m looking less for a theoretical or critical perspective and more for this kind of open-source knowledge, or kind of 'crowd-sourced' perspective,"
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Still, some continue to worry that the very structure of Wikipedia encourages editors (who can be anyone) to disregard expertise and undermine the basic mechanics of peer review and academic credibility.
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In other words, what happens to articles once they're posted? Will they be watered down or made inaccurate by someone with no relevant credentials? Wikipedians would argue that credentials are besides the point -- that anyone with a computer can police the encyclopedia by judging source material, sifting through edits and using a neutral tone to describe disputes. It's a dynamic that Sorin Matei, a communications professor at Purdue University, describes this way: "He who can sit for the longest in front of the computer is right."