Hieveryone,
We justfinished our report on Science in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.Unfortunately it is in German only, but I would like to present at least anEnglish 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 potentialof Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wikiversity for academic communication. Firstly, weintroduce the pioneer project Wikipedia and the following projects bythe Wikimedia Foundation by outlining their historical development and basicfunctional principles. Secondly, we focus on the scholarly use of thedifferent platforms. Starting with Wikipedia and followed by Wikibooks andWikiversity, we analyze each project regarding its peculiarities that contrast it fromthe others, its size and range, its academic content, its authors, and theway it is used for teaching, collaboration and research. We found that in all examined projectsacademic engagement is presented through scholarly content itself and throughthe related communicative processes such as teaching and partlycollaboration and research. However, there are significant differences in the wayand 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 withscientific expertise in order to be qualitatively satisfying. This leadsto a kind of forced marriage between Wikipedia and academia. On the otherhand, Wikibooks and Wikiversity seem to be less successful compared to theirsister project, which is why there are only weak connections between academiaand these platforms so far. In all cases the social and technologicaldynamics of the projects make it difficult, if not impossible, to estimate theirlong-time future influence on scholarly communication. Therefore we suggestcontinuing to observe them from this perspective.
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You are welcome to contact me if you are interested in ourproject. Best,
René
-- René König Sociology student at the University of Bielefeld, Germany
Research assistant at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS) Strohgasse 45, 5 A-1030 Vienna
Tel. (Office): +43-(0)1-51581-6597 Homepage: renekoenig.eu
Project “Interactive Science” (for more information please see www.oeaw.ac.at/ita/interactive)
René König wrote:
Hieveryone,
We justfinished our report on “Science in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects“.Unfortunately it is in German only, but I would like to present at least anEnglish summary to you. People who know German can download the paper here: http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/ita/ita-projektberichte/d2-2a52-2.pdf
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
This sounds quite interesting. Are there any plans for a full translation?
Thanks for posting this René. I'd also be interested to see a translation - but in the absence of this, I'd like to clarify some points. Firstly, I can see you've based your research on different language versions - did you look at differences across language versions, as well as projects?
Also, I'm confused about this summary:
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 withscientific expertise in order to be qualitatively satisfying. This leadsto a kind of “forced marriage” between Wikipedia and academia. On the otherhand, Wikibooks and Wikiversity seem to be less successful compared to theirsister project, which is why there are only weak connections between academiaand these platforms so far.
Are you saying that there is something within Wikipedia's scope/methodology/etc that makes it more relevant to a scientific/academic audience - in other words, what is creating this "forced marriage"? Is there something within Wikibooks/Wikiversity's scope/methodology/etc which is holding it back from being as "successful"? I'm curious about how you define, and gauge, "success" and "relevance" - but I'm really most interested in whether you see a particular aspect of particular projects as the *driver* for academic relevance/success.
Thanks, Cormac
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org