IHow to use Wikipedia for academia

Kevin Lim • University at Buffalo

Cheektowaga Central High School • 13th May 2008

Kevin LimCyberculture Researcher

http://theory.isthereason.com

Where do you go when you’re online?

Source: http://xkcd.com/256

• Among top 10 most visited websites• 70% of traffic is from search engines

• Cited in over 100 U.S. court rulingsSource: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29wikipedia.html

We [heart] Wikipedia!

• The first Wiki, WikiWikiWeb, was created by Ward Cunningham in 1995

• Named after Hawaiian bus service, Wiki Wiki

• Allows users to easily create and edit Web pages using any Web browser

• Encourages democratic use of Web

Source: http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

What is a Wiki?

Worldwide Participation

• 253 languages

• 2 million+ articles in English

• 5 million articles in languages other than English, accounting for half of all traffic

• Freely -licensed image, video, and sound files on Wikimedia Commons are used across languages

Source: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias_by_language_family

It’s kind of a big deal…

• “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.”

– Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales

Source: Chrys at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrys/5591867/

A Culture of Giving

• Almost no co-ordination of effort

• 2% of users (1400 people) make 73.4% of edits

• 0.7% of users (524 people) make 50% of edits

• But… people who make very, very few edits write most of Wikipedia’s content

Source: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

How do we edit pages

on Wikipedia?

Anatomy of Wikipedia: Normal View

* key interaction areas

Anatomy of Wikipedia: Editing View

* key interaction areas

Size of English Wikipedia

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2007.svg

Contents of English Wikipedia (satire!)

Source: http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/blog/2007/08/29/what-wikipedia-would-look-like-if-on-paper-broken-down/

How do we know what’s accurate

on Wikipedia?

“Wikipedia is a great place to start, not end, your research”

Dr. Alex Halavaishttp://alex.halavais.net

The Good Idea:Proper citing of

Wikipedia

Wikipedia pages are dynamic. They typically change over

time.

Wikipedia lets you “Cite this page”.

Offers various citation styles

Wikipedia pages also featureversion history .

“Freeze your reference” by picking your preferred point

in history

Cite references using the “permalink” to that point in

history

Anatomy of Wikipedia: Revision View

When in doubt, try Wikipedia’s Revision View

The Better Idea:

Going beyond Wikipedia

Wikipedia has numbered citations, linked to references below...

Work from these references. Keep branching outward from

there.

Go through references, picking ones you think are

great for your paper.

Bates, Marcia J. (1989). “The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface.” Online Review, 13(5): 407-424. Available here: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/berrypicking.html

Wikipedia is

immense.

Take your time to

understand the

community and culture.

Questions& Answers

hopefully.

Dynamics of Wikipedia, by Su-Liane Yeo (Nov 2007)http://www.slideshare.net/syeo/dynamics-of-wikipedia/

Wikibooks: How to start a Wikihttp://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki

Wikipedia: How to Edit a Pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page

Free Wiki has demos, screenshots, and general info on Wikis.http://www.freewiki.info/

A Comprehensive Wiki Comparison Enginehttp://www.wikimatrix.org/

Using Wiki in Educationhttp://scienceofspectroscopy.info/edit/index.php?title=Using_wiki_in_education

ReferencesRelated Wiki Links

Blogs & Wikis: contributing to the e-dialogRecordings of an ETC Discussion Forum held on September 28th, 2005, provided by Professor Alex Halavais

Weblogs and collaborative web publishing as learning spaces. Halavais, A. (In press). In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, and P. Trifonas (Eds.), International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments. Springer.

Handbook for Bloggers and CyberdissidentsReporters Without Borders.http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (1998).

ReferencesRelated Blog Readings