[Book Review] Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority and Liberal Education in the Digital Age, by Thomas Leitch

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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…
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[BOOK REVIEW] Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness

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Now, here's an interesting looking book, and this first couple of paragraphs sums up a lot: The relationship between academics and Wikipedia is a complex one. At one level we love it: however much some of us may deny it, we all use it, at the very least as a route to other information, and often as a way to start to get an idea about something new. At another level we hate it, knowing…
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Wikipedia of Value in Teaching?

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Interesting insights into how Wikipedia can be used for teaching: The opportunities and challenges of integrating Wikipedia into higher education formed a central strand of the tenth annual Wikimania conference, which heard how academics and students are using and improving the collaboratively edited online resource. The conference, held at London’s Barbican Centre last week and kicked off by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, heard from Shani Evenstein, who works at the Sackler School of Medicine at…
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Peer-Reviewed Wikipedia?

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So, can lecturers now stop saying "don't use Wikipedia" ... my motto has always been - fine to start there, really don't want you to end there, but am even I going to have to rethink? “Social and technological advances have brought about significant changes in methods of publication, particularly via a shift to electronic or online media,” she writes. “The openaccess publishing model is predicated upon that shift. “In the past decade there has…
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Universities Seeking to Tweak Wikipedia

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The power of Wikipedia … often the first source that comes up in search … causing university PR departments to seek to tweak their pieces: University press officers have been deleting negative information and finessing critical passages on their institutions’ Wikipedia pages, breaking the online encyclopedia’s guidelines in the process. The revelations fuel debate over how far universities should go in burnishing their image in an era of higher tuition fees and greater competition for…
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