Wikipedia (such as whether it is an accurate source), but due to the unique collaborative processes on Wikipedia these two areas are deeply intertwined.
IntroductionWikipedia () is an online, free-content international and multilingual encyclopedia, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation (http://wikimediafoundation.org ). The site is collaboratively produced by volunteers, and is based on wiki software, which allows contributions from anyone with a web browser and internet access. Contributors may be anonymous, and nearly every page of the site is editable. Wikipedia has experienced massive growth since its inception in 2001, becoming one of the world's largest reference works, with over a million articles in the English language Wikipedia alone. The contributors represent one of the world's most diverse online communities, with projects established in over two hundred languages 1 .Because of these factors, the site provides a unique view into the processes of collaborative work, demonstrating how people brought together with a common goal can produce meaningful results, develop community guidelines and policy, and resolve differences. Wikipedia is also unique as a project in producing "encyclopedic" content with no top-down editorial control or mandatory peer review processes. This raises questions and concerns about the accuracy, validity and scope of the site's content. These questions seem to have not impacted the high use of Wikipedia, however, which as of May 2006 was ranked as one of the top twenty websites in the world by use 2 .Wikipedia thus offers multiple opportunities for interesting research projects. To date, there has been no review of the research that is taking place on and about Wikipedia, and indeed there have been few scholarly studies of the site, despite its growing importance and inherent interest 3 . While there has been much commentary about Wikipedia in the popular and scholarly press alike, there has been little attempt to systematically examine the site. Several master's theses and PhD dissertations are underway, but there is little published work 4 . In part, this may be due to the newness of the site, and in part to the difficulties of studying Wikipedia -studying anonymous, open, rapidly changing wikis present unique challenges to the Internet researcher. This paper is a review of social science and information science research studies done on and about Wikipedia. While there's a larger literature of studies done on wikis in general, this review focuses exclusively on scholarly studies that are primarily about or based on Wikipedia. This paper also outlines research questions that have been raised to date and suggests future directions. It is hoped that examining research endeavors undertaken so far and particularly focusing on study methods and methodologies will help inform future research on the users, communities, content and technical infrastructure of Wikipedia.This review is necessarily incomplete; there are a number of studies that mention Wikipedi...