The academics at my uni think the wikipedia is mildly offensive, in the sense that they enjoy being paid to write books/journals/whathaveyou, and don't enjoy seeing amateurs giving it away for free. Because of this, and our noticable failings, students are penalised if they attempt to cite the wikipedia as a source at my uni.
I just now returned from an 8 hour seminar wherein we were repeatedly informed that free, non-governmental information on the internet is dubious at best, and should be avoided for anything other than commercial or general knowledge queries. Instead, the online university database was praised (it includes a subscription to britannica, btw ;)
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/18/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Fastfission wrote
As an aside, it would be interesting to have a fairly comprehensive
discussion of what academic experts think of Wikipedia, in relation to teaching as well as just generally.
They're going to think it's patchy, aren't they?
Most academics are remarkably poor at popularization. They write as experts, for experts. Any technical slip will catch their eye, before all the work going into access and presentation.
Most non-user academics are going to miss the point about hypertext. An area of WP with good navigation can get you in an hour what might cost a week of a well-appointed library. But only academics who actually remember the mazy, hazy grad student days of bombardment by things about which one should already know will rate that aspect.
Most popularizing academics will find the tone of WP rather subdued. (This is a good thing. We have no need to do boosterism. )
Charles
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