Hi, Everyone

 

I don't know precisely what content is most desired here, but perhaps because of that,

I think I'll just throw some ideas out there in the name of "you know,

there just AREN'T ENOUGH OPINIONS OUT THERE." (smiley face)

 

So, here are some ideas I have about Wikipedia and its place in the cosmos

of information literacy.

 

We know that a lot of information professionals have made public and private

proclamations about the inadequacy of Wikipedia--we are known

as its biggest enemies. Many college instructors loathe it as well. I'd say

disliking Wikipedia is very much in vogue.

 

However, I would suggest, as I have suggested in an article I recently

submitted to College Teaching, that more than anything else, teaching faculty

and librarians are doing students a disservice when flatly banning

Wikipedia, and that wholesale rejections of it as an information source

are misguided.

 

My chief reasons for this are:

1. Telling students not to use a particular source takes from them an

opportunity to evaluate the content of a source.  In my view, critical

thinking does not entail knowing "Wikipedia is bad," but knowing how

to tell a good entry from a bad.

2. Notions of the unreliability of Wikipedia are grossly exaggerated, and

in any case, entries on the site increasingly come with valid citations.

3. A main reason that instructors dislike the site is that the author is

not identified (and may be that most loathsome creature, AN AMATEUR!!!).

Kathy Schrock, a public schools information professional, wrote

in Techonology and Learning in 2007, that she dislikes the fact that

Wikipedia entries don't have an "about the author" page which

would allow students to google that author to see what others

have written about her, what organizations she may belong to, etc.

But I'd argue that Wikipedia gives students something better: on the

"discussion" page students can see a back-and-forth exchange between

contributors and various users. Rather than letting us know something

(I'd argue is) superficial about the author such as credentials, or that

someone else mentions him negatively, it shows us insight into the

words that author uses. It gives us a critique of them and shows the author

responding. What a wonderful information literacy experience.

4. Academic journals, with their often inpenetrable jargon and tremendously

narrowly focused articles, do not supply students with basic background

information they need for parts of their papers.

 

 

Now, academic librarians have to abide by policies and guidelines for

research, unless we can change those policies. And since our interactions

with students are relatively brief, it is hard for us to have a very holistic

approach to information literacy. In that regard, I see the onus as being

on classroom instructors: I feel they need to teach information literacy as

process-based and not product-based.  I don't think it is as important that

students use "the best sources" as it is that they learn HOW TO TELL

what the best sources ARE. If they screw up along the way, that's how they

learn.

 

So, I myself have a handout concerning Wikipedia that I give out when I

do information literacy (aka bibliographic instruction) sessions. I often

feel out the instructor first to make sure this won't clash too much. But the

handout doesn't tell students to use Wikipedia or not to. It just gives information,

an anatomy of what I consider a solid entry as well as an anatomy of

a problematic one, with some pointers.

I'd like to post a bibliography of Wikipedia books and articles on our institution's

Information Literacy page, but our Instruction Coordinator vetoed the idea.

In any event, my view is that a part that info professionals can play is to

gather, bundle, and present as much information as they can about

wikis and other user-created content, so that teaching faculty or other

concerned parties can be as informed as possible. At the very least, we should

be as informed about the workings of these sources and about issues and controversies

surrounding them as anyone.

There's the brief version of my ideas. I'd be interested to see anyone's comments

or experiences, etc.

Thanks

Jeff Maehre

Frostburg St.