i heart wikipedia
DESCRIPTION
A half hour talk for around 80 National Honor students on using Wikipedia effectively for academia. An updated version of this Powerpoint has been uploaded on 5/13/08 at 12.20pm. You can also view the video of this talk at http://theory.isthereason.com/?p=2192TRANSCRIPT
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