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Wikipedia, the upstart Internet encyclopedia that most universities
forbid students to use, has suddenly become a teaching tool for
professors.
Recently, university teachers have swapped student term papers for
assignments to write entries for the free online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is an "open-source" web site, which means that
entries can be started or edited by anyone in the world with an
Internet connection.
Writing for Wikipedia "seems like a much larger stage, more of
a challenge," than a term paper, said professor Jon
Beasley-Murray, who teaches Latin American literature at the
University of British Columbia in this western Canadian city.
"The vast majority of Wikipedia entries aren't very good,"
said Beasley-Murray, but said the site aims to be academically
sound.
To reach its goal of academic standards, said Wikipedia's web site,
it set up an assessment scale on its English-language site. The best
encyclopedia entries are ranked as "Featured Articles,"
and run each day on the home page at www.wikipedia.com.
To be ranked as a "Featured Article," Wikipedia said an
entry must "provide thorough, well-written coverage of their
topic, supported by many references to peer-reviewed
publications."
Of more than 10 million articles in 253 languages, only about 2,000
have reached "Featured Article" status, it said.
As an experiment, last January Beasley-Murray promised his students
a rare A+ grade if they got their projects for his literature
course, called "Murder, Madness and Mayhem," accepted as a
Wikipedia Featured Article."
In May, three entries created by nine students in the course became
the first student works to reach Wikipedia's top rank.
Their articles, about the book "El Señor Presidente" by
Nobel prize-winning Guatemalan author Miguel à ngel Asturias, ran
May 5 on Wikipedia's home page.
Wikipedia has also designated, but not yet published, a student's
biography on Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, and an entry on
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez's book, "the General in his
Labyrinth."
Beasley-Murray said the projects took the students four months, and
one entry was revised 1,000 times.
Typically, thousands or millions of people visit a Wikipedia entry,
and each visitor is able to edit entries, or even flag an article
considered unworthy to have it removed.
Working online with anyone watching or editing "was really hard
to get into," said Eva Shiu, a third-year student who worked on
the Marquez entry. "But it was really exciting, and I feel like
I've accomplished something," she told AFP.
"I got addicted to it ... I was up nights until three or four
a.m. in the morning working on it."
Monica Freudenreich, who worked on the Asturias entry, said she
liked the fact her contribution will survive online. Usually term
papers "end up in a binder than eventually sits under my
bed," she wrote on Wikipedia.
The University of British Columbia entries are among some 70
academic projects now registered at Wikipedia, by institutions from
Yale University to the University of Tartu, Estonia.
Wikipedia itself invites professors "to use Wikipedia in your
class to demonstrate how an open content website works (or
doesn't)."
But the experiment has had controversies, including student work
that was instantly deleted as not "notable."
"Sometimes it's a disaster," said Beasley-Murray.
"But in some ways it's good news ... this was a great learning
experience for students."
-- AFP
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