[extropy-chat] Education monopolies [was: Education in 2030]

[BillK]

On 1/27/07, Robert Bradbury wrote:
> While I would agree that the Wikipedia error rate might be higher than
> conventional encyclopedias in our current world there is *no* "up-to-date"
> "encyclopedia" -- nor will there be so long as encyclopedias are not "free".
>  There are several billion people, some of whom might be the next E.D., R.M.
> or R.F. who do not have access to "subscription" based encyclopedias who do
> have access to Wikipedia.
>

I think you might be misunderstanding / overreacting in this case.

The faculty members are not instructing their students not to use Wikipedia.
They are just insisting that citations must refer to the original
research papers.
That's why you keep seeing 'cite required' in Wikipedia pages.

The Wikipedia editors themselves agree that especially at university
level, papers should cite an original source, not an encyclopaedia, -
*any* encyclopaedia.

See:
<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki>

Quote from the article:
Roy Rosenzweig, director of the Center for History and New Media at
George Mason University, did an analysis of the accuracy of Wikipedia
for The Journal of American History, and he found that in many
entries, Wikipedia was as accurate or more accurate than more
traditional encyclopaedias. He said that the quality of material was
inconsistent, and that biographical entries were generally well done,
while more thematic entries were much less so. Like Ordonez, he said
the real problem is one of college students using encyclopaedias when
they should be using more advanced sources.

"College students shouldn't be citing encyclopaedias in their papers,"
he said. "That's not what college is about. They either should be
using primary sources or serious secondary sources."
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BillK