Wikipedia Should Be Embraced by Academia

I have been using Wikipedia as a research tool for the past several years. It has been a tremendous source of information on a wide range of topics. But it wasn’t until I saw this TED talk, which features founder Jimmy Wales explaining the birth of Wikipedia. He makes a lot of interesting points while describing how this free online encyclopedia came about and continues to improve.

In his talk, Wales talks about the misconception that educators and academics are opposed to the idea of Wikipedia. While he makes a great case defending his creation, I must say that I have not come across too many professors who are in favor of using the site to do research. But should they? A lot of the points Wales makes about Wikipedia should, at the very least, spark a conversation about the viability of Wikipedia as an academic source. After listening to Jimmy Wales explain all the work that goes in creating Wikipedia entries and maintaining quality, I think that they me be just as viable a source as traditional periodicals or references.

Like Jimmy Wales said, the site has more visitors than the New York Times website. At the time of his talk, Wikipedia had over 600,000 articles in English and more than 2 million total. Those numbers are staggering and make Wikipedia a source that really has no competition in terms of the amount of information it holds.

Wikipedia also has the benefit of a diverse group of people continually editing each page. This helps on many different levels. First, it makes more sense to have thousands of people working on an entry than just a few. As we have read, these people working together can hone in on the accurate information better than a small group could. This group effort also helps because the people come from a diverse background. This works as a kind of checks and balances system that may not exist in traditional resources with information being created by less people. These people are also constantly making edits to the entries. This makes the information much more timely than a static entry in an encyclopedia or a news article.

    While many argue that leaving such powers up to individuals can lead to inaccurate information, there are actually policies and procedures in place to ensure that does not happen. The community has people always checking to make sure guidelines are being followed with an emphasis on quality and neutrality.  Wikipedia certainly prides itself on its openness, but like Mr. Wales said, quality is more important than the openness. The members of the community understand that and strive to maintain that across all entries.
    The final point in favor of adopting Wikipedia as a legitimate source for academic reference has to do with its cost to users. That cost, of course, is nothing. As a free tool offering so much information, it is really hard to compare Wikipedia’s value to any other source. So often limits are placed on access to information because there is some kind of pay wall in the way. For Wikipedia, all you need is a computer with an internet connection. This is a huge step towards leveling a playing field that sees students from lower income households at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to education.
    With all this in mind, we should be acknowledging Wikipedia as a great tool for all of us who want to learn more. Instead of ridiculing we should be embracing it as the great information tool of our generation, with people coming together to aggregate information about a wide range of topics and making this information available at no cost.