This looks worth a read … had many discussions about the use of Wikipedia within academic life … and let’s face it, many of us use it as a first stop… but as I say to students, it shouldn’t be the last stop:
In this deceptively slender volume, Leitch gathers a fascinating set of narratives around the nature of authority in the academic world, based strongly on the liberal education approach of critical analysis and debate. He looks perceptively at the New Model Army of innovative information folk represented by the Wikipedia philosophy of freedom, and discusses the issues raised in terms of a battle between the visibly entrenched opposing forces of “top-down” authority and the “bottom-up” building of consensus. It is a new world full of paradox, of unresolved questions and of the metaphoric scraping of metal on metal as the traditional architectures of academia struggle to avoid a slow-motion car wreck between the two cultures.
Read full article.
