Hi
everyone,
We just
finished our report on “Science in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects“.
Unfortunately it is in German only, but I would like to present at least an
English summary to you. People who know German can download the paper here:
http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/ita/ita-projektberichte/d2-2a52-2.pdf
SUMMARY
In this report we examine the potential
of Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wikiversity
for academic communication. Firstly, we
introduce the pioneer project
Wikipedia and the following projects by
the Wikimedia Foundation by outlining
their historical development and basic
functional principles. Secondly, we
focus on the scholarly use of the
different platforms. Starting with Wikipedia
and followed by Wikibooks and
Wikiversity, we analyze each project regarding
its peculiarities that contrast it from
the others, its size and range, its
academic content, its authors, and the
way it is used for teaching, collaboration
and research.
We found that in all examined projects
academic engagement is presented
through scholarly content itself and through
the related communicative processes
such as teaching and partly
collaboration and research. However, there
are significant differences in the way
and the range this engagement appears.
Therefore, the results show two sides:
On the one hand, Wikipedia has enormous
public and growing academic relevance.
Additionally the encyclopaedia
depends on many areas of knowledge with
scientific expertise in order to
be qualitatively satisfying. This leads
to a kind of “forced marriage” between
Wikipedia and academia. On the other
hand, Wikibooks and Wikiversity seem
to be less successful compared to their
sister project, which is why there are
only weak connections between academia
and these platforms so far. In all
cases the social and technological
dynamics of the projects make it difficult,
if not impossible, to estimate their
long-time future influence on scholarly
communication. Therefore we suggest
continuing to observe them from this
perspective.
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You are welcome to contact me if you are interested in our project.
Best,
René