Wiki wars

5 Responses to “Wiki wars”

1. 

   Katya 15/03/2008 at 1:14 pm #

   I think I know where you stand. Anyway majority of students always use Wikipedia to look for information. Quite often references in the end of Wikipedia’s entree go to the essay’s bibliography to avoid conflict with academics. It looks like social media popularity is having a huge impact on academic process too.
   I wonder how long it will take for Leeds Met to start running the Social Media course.

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2. 

   Richard Bailey 15/03/2008 at 8:55 pm #

   Not everything that can be learnt needs to be taught. So engagement with social media is optional at undergraduate level, but I’m running a course at Master’s level including blogging as an assessed element.

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3. 

   Hayley Wilson 17/03/2008 at 8:40 pm #

   The nature of wikipedia and the need to post academic or other references is its strength. From a students perspective, while I probably wouldn’t take more than a cursory glance at the content, I would use the bibliography as a basis for a wide ranging literature review.

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4. 

   Caroline Wilson 19/03/2008 at 4:01 pm #

   I instinctively agreed with you Richard, but I also agree with Katya, that a canny student may well look at Wikipedia to start with but reference something more scholarly once they get into a topic.
   I find Wikipedia a very useful intro to ideas which are new to me and if it makes learning accessible that’s got to be a good thing.
   I also heard on Radio 4’s ‘Thinking Allowed’ programme that some people have done some fairly rudimentary comparisons and found Wikipedia entries to be more accurate than Encylopedia Britannica.

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5. 

   Claire Pace 19/03/2008 at 6:53 pm #

   Jeremy Clarkson once famously said he checked his Wikipedia page to find 90% of it wasn’t true. The question is can be said for some academic pages? Can they be classed as safe, reliable sources?
   Personally, I treat online tools such as Wikipedia as a ‘trap’ when I’m doing essays- it all seems too easy to get hold of the information! I definitely prefer take the academic approach and find the information myself rather than ‘Cache’ quotes from Websites (another trick that is popular with the last minute student!)

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