This paper explores the current perception of Wikipedia in academia, focusing on both the reasons for its unpopularity among some, and the reasons for its growing acceptance among others. First, the reasons that Wikipedia is still struggling to gain acceptance among many academics and higher education professionals are identified. These include common misconceptions about Wikipedia, doubts about its quality; uneasiness with the challenge it poses to the traditional peer review system; and a lack of careerenhancing motivations related to using Wikipedia. Second, the benefits of teaching with Wikipedia for educators, students and the wider society, as discussed in the current teaching literature, are explored.Finally, the paper presents an argument for using Wikipedia in a variety of ways to help students develop critical and academic writing skills.
International audienceJust a few years ago Wikipedia was seen as a barbarian invading the ivory tower. Now, an increasing number of academics recognize that it can be used as an effective teaching tool. The following paper is divided into two parts. It beings with a discussion of the advantages of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, an activity that goes beyond a simple addition to the teaching repertoire, and allows contributing to our society through service learning and participation in an online community of practice. Contributing to Wikipedia benefits the students, the instructors and the wider community. The second part focuses on practice of teaching with Wikipedia. Building on my five years of experience in teaching with wikis and Wikipedia and holding workshops on the subject, I will discuss the most efficient ways to incorporate Wikipedia into one's teaching curriculum, highlight common problems and their solutions, and describe a number of new tools enhancing the “teaching with Wikipedia” experience
International audienceThis study examines whether the Iron Law of Oligarchy exists in Wikipedia by analyzing how a key policy of the website regarding verifiability evolved into its current form. The study describes the decision making processes of Wikipedia and shows that there are many factors preventing or slowing the development of oligarchy on Wikipedia. The study provides data advancing theoretical concepts related to the Iron Law of Oligarchy and the evolution of virtual communities and organizations; results and knowledge gained can also improve Wikipedia policies related to verifiability
In this study, we investigate how quantification of Wikipedia biographies can shed light on worldwide longitudinal gender inequality trends, a macro-level dimension of human development. We present the Wikidata Human Gender Indicator (WHGI), located within a set of indicators allowing comparative study of gender inequality through space and time, the Wikipedia Gender Indicators (WIGI), based on metadata available through the Wikidata database. Our research confirms that gender inequality is a phenomenon with a long history, but whose patterns can be analyzed and quantified on a larger scale than previously thought possible. Through the use of Inglehart–Welzel cultural clusters, we show that gender inequality can be analyzed with regard to world’s cultures. We also show a steadily improving trend in the coverage of women and other genders in reference works.
International audienceIn recent years, a new realm has appeared for the study of political and sociological phenomena: the Internet. This paper will analyze the decision-making processes of one of the largest online communities, Wikipedia. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia – now among the top 10 most popular sites on the Internet -- has succeeded in attracting and organizing millions of volunteers and creating the world's largest encyclopedia. To date, however, little study has been done of Wikipedia's governance. There is substantial confusion about its decision-making structure. The organization's governance has been compared to many decision-making and political systems -- from democracy to dictatorship, from bureaucracy to anarchy. It is the purpose of this paper to go beyond the earlier simplistic descriptions of Wikipedia's governance -- to advance the study of online governance, and of organizations more generally. As the evidence will show, while Wikipedia's governance shows elements common to many traditional governance models, it appears to be closest to the organizational structure known as adhocracy
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.