[WikiEN-l] An interesting university view on Wikipedia

[Brian Salter-Duke]

"The Age" newspaper in Melbourne, Australia has just brought out a
supplement caled "Australians All: Essays on the Nation" (October 31,
2007) to allow a number of people to reflect on Australian society
during our current election campaign.

In an article, "The end of the gatekeeper", Glyn Davis, the Vice
Chancellor of Melbourne University, has this to say about Wikipedia:-

"Wikipedia offers more than 2 million published articles, covering
almost every imaginable topic in mostly readable prose. Though the
Wikipedia site issues warnings about its academic use, the best
Wikipedia entries are written by experts checked and corrected by other
experts, providing breadth of knowledge and peer review. Wikipedia
itself offers hints on how to tell a good entry from a bad one. Though
several American universities have banned it as a citation source,
Wikipedia is so accessible it is inevitably used."

That seems more positive than anything I have read previously from Vice
Chancellors and similar. Indeed it is probably more positive than any of
us are.

The rest of the article is also interesting, but I do not know whether
it is on the web. I can not find it.

Brian.
-- 
          Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au  
               [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
           Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity