Poll results: Is Wikipedia a valid academic tool?

With 1108 votes cast, the results are:

• Yes: 45%
• No: 55%

A response from our experts

The poll returned a close result, with 45% of respondents voting ‘yes’ and 55% ‘no’ and this is reflected in the views of academic librarians in the University.

A 'live' resource

It is true that the format of Wikipedia gives it several advantages over existing academic sources.

Its ‘live’ nature means that it is continually updated by contributors and is excellent for picking up new and fleeting jargon terms and usually up to date so that it can react to events and changes in culture as they happen – something established academic resources can’t do with their lengthy editorial processes.

A useful starting point

Wikipedia does have some validity in the research process with advantages over existing academic resources. It’s a fine starting point for a quick overview, to familiarise yourself with a topic that may be completely new to you and with useful links to related information.

However, students following a course of academic study are expected to explore and engage with a full range of material to present a balanced argument and shouldn’t rely on encyclopaedias as a single research source.

It’s also worth noting that contributors to Wikipedia have dropped significantly in recent times and maintenance of the site could become a real issue.

Questions of authorship

The key objection we have with students using Wikipedia as an information source is the question of authorship.

Its contributors, however well meaning, are often enthusiasts with no academic standing (although some entries are breathtaking in the level of detail they contain) and herein lays the central point of opposition – students following a course of academic study are expected to explore and engage with academic sources.

Unreliability

Academic sources have an editorial element and in many cases they have the extra element of peer review, which in simple terms means that the information is verified by experts in the field. In its current version, academics may contribute to it but there is no overall peer review and editing. Until this approach alters, Wikipedia is simply unreliable.

An alternative “scholarly” option is scholarpedia (http://www.scholarpedia.org/) which has a similar spirit to Wikipedia but where contributors are invited to write articles for it based on their credentials.

Developing information-seeking skills

On a practical level we have no problems with students or staff using Wikipedia (or Google) as a starting point, as they both can give a valuable oversight of a subject.

However, we believe it is vital is that students are given the opportunity within the curriculum to develop their information-seeking skills to enable them to retrieve information from a wide variety of sources – in whatever format – to evaluate for relevance and authenticity.

They can then critically analyse the information and communicate it forward in an ethical and legal manner.

Chris Lambert, Helen Curtis, and Tom Hicks

Academic Liaison Team, Learning and Information Services.

17 February 2010