Alas, the closest thing to a “lake” we have here in Santa Clarita is Bridgeport which is 1) too far away from where I am, and 2) too toxic-looking at the moment to ever consider dipping one’s feet in.

But, in a few days, I shall dip my toes into the cold ocean.  I shall relish it.]

A few months ago, I discovered a rather useful tool called InstaPaper.  It’s free and ridiculously easy to use.  It also has a free, downloadable app for my Android phone which makes reading articles so much more convenient on the run.  This article is one of those I saved awhile back.

Did you see the research paper on First Monday entitled, How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course-related research?  Written by Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg of the Information School at the University of Washington, the paper focuses on how students really use Wikipedia.  I agree with how they start off their introduction – “Want to stir up a room full of college faculty and librarians?  Mention Wikipedia.”

I mentioned Wikipedia as part of my presentation at the CA-AAFCS State & Western Region conference a few weeks back, and I saw some smirks in the audience.  My point wasn’t Wikipedia itself but the wiki software; it didn’t matter for a few of the attendees.  Wikipedia was Wikipedia, bastion of misinformation that it is.

I believe Wikipedia has its good points, but many faculty members and teachers cling to their distrust of the site and its contents.  They encourage students to stay away from it during their research lest a student “quote” misinformation from it, but are students really using Wikipedia for their research?

According to Head and Eisenberg, maybe not.  “A majority of respondents frequently used Wikipedia for background information, but less often than they used other common resources, such as course readings and Google.”  Their initial findings suggest that those in the “hard sciences” tend to use Wikipedia more, and those that do use Wikipedia use it “in combination with other information resources.”

A couple of interesting points from their research (my comments in parentheses):

• More females participated than males (and yet more of the sciences traditionally ascribed as being male-dominated fields used Wikipedia the most – does this mean there are more females in those fields than people give them credit for?)
• Reasons given for using Wikipedia included:
• summaries of a topic
• finding the meaning of terms
• launch pad to get research started
• “usable interface” (research databases, do you see this?  If you were more user-friendly, maybe the students would flock to you first!)
• Students use Wikipedia even if instructors advised against it (I already knew this deep down in my heart, but as educators, I think we need to teach our students how to process and think through the information presented in sources like Wikipedia instead of merely advising them to stay away)
• “[Students] did not think that they could approach an instructor about an assignment, until they knew more about their topic”.  Thus, they’d go to Wikipedia first.  (That just broke my heart.  I hope I am the kind of professor that my students can run to first for clarification on an assignment.  That’s what I’m here for!  Maybe I can add a Wikipedia entry with my picture and contact info.  Just kidding)
• Students may have started their research projects on Wikipedia, but they don’t end with it.

So what’s Wikipedia’s true appeal?  According to the authors, “Wikipedia’s information utility is tied to four C’s it delivers – currency, coverage, comprehensibility, and convenience.”  (emphasis added)  I think we can learn from that.

I would encourage you to read the article for yourself and not be overwhelmed by the technical nature of the writing.

And check out InstaPaper.com while you’re at it.