Wikipedia and institutional repositories: an academic symbiosis?

A study of citations from Wikipedia articles to documents in institutional repositories showed that although the number of citations was small in relation to the number of documents (citations made to the repositories were 0.35% of the number of documents in the repositories) institutional repositories were a useful source of research information to support Wikipedia articles. 35% of citations were for background information, and 65% were citations supporting specific points, for example: scientific or historical facts, expression of a consensus, attribution of an idea, a convenient summary, the source of a classification, or to give an academic cast to a popular culture article. The types of documents cited reflect the range of academic publishing: 22% of citations were to PhD Theses, 15% to Master level theses, 21% to journal articles, 17% to conference papers, and 11% to technical or working papers. Although the materials in the repositories were overwhelmingly in English, 35% of citations were made from non-English versions of Wikipedia, indicating that institutional repositories play a role in making research available across national and language barriers. Although Wikipedia has been viewed with suspicion by academia the study indicates a potential symbiosis between Wikipedia and academic research in institutional repositories

Wikipedia and institutional repositories: an academic symbiosis?

A study of citations from Wikipedia articles to documents in institutional repositories showed that although the number of citations was small in relation to the number of documents (citations made to the repositories were 0.35% of the number of documents in the repositories) institutional repositories were a useful source of research information to support Wikipedia articles. 35% of citations were for background information, and 65% were citations supporting specific points, for example: scientific or historical facts, expression of a consensus, attribution of an idea, a convenient summary, the source of a classification, or to give an academic cast to a popular culture article. The types of documents cited reflect the range of academic publishing: 22% of citations were to PhD Theses, 15% to Master level theses, 21% to journal articles, 17% to conference papers, and 11% to technical or working papers. Although the materials in the repositories were overwhelmingly in English, 35% of citations were made from non-English versions of Wikipedia, indicating that institutional repositories play a role in making research available across national and language barriers. Although Wikipedia has been viewed with suspicion by academia the study indicates a potential symbiosis between Wikipedia and academic research in institutional repositories

Authoring Wikipedia articles as an information literacy assignment : copy-pasting or expressing new understanding in one s own words?

Paper 503. Journal has a creative commons license: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

“The Sum of All Human Knowledge”: A Systematic Review of Scholarly Research on the Content of Wikipedia

Wikipedia might possibly be the best-developed attempt thus far of the enduring quest to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it an irresistible point of inquiry for researchers from various fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and content. However, due to the variety of the fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedia’s content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer-reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies

Where does the information come from? Information source use patterns in Wikipedia

  Little is known about Wikipedia contributors’ information behaviour and from where and how the information in the encyclopaedia originated. Even though a large number of texts in Wikipedia cite external sources according to the intentions of the verifiability policy, many articles lack references and in many others the references have been added afterwards. Method. This article reports the results of a Web survey of information source use patterns, answered by 108 Wikipedia contributors in spring 2008. Analysis. The qualitative questions were analysed using a close reading and grounded theory approach. The multiple-choice questions were analysed using descriptive statistics and bi-variate correlation analysis. Results. The results indicate that there are several distinct groups of contributors using different information sources. The results also indicate a preference for sources available online. However, in spite of the popularity of online material a significant proportion of the original information is based on printed literature, personal expertise and other non-digital sources of information. The information source use of Wikipedia contributors is also illustrative of the complexity and life-world scope of human information behaviour. Conclusions. Understanding the information source use of contributors helps us to understand how new Wikipedia articles emerge, how edits are motivated, where the information actually comes from and more generally, what kind of information may be expected to be found in Wikipedia

“The sum of all human knowledge”: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content of Wikipedia

Wikipedia might possibly be the best-developed attempt thus far of the enduring quest to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it an irresistible point of inquiry for researchers from various fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and content. However, due to the variety of the fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedia’s content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer-reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies