Heather Ford has a new post on struggles of Wikipedia and its future. From the post:
Much has been said of the future of Wikipedia. Some have prophesied that the online encyclopaedia will fail due to increasing spam. Others have said that, as large parts of the world go online, Wikipedia might see a wave of new editors as countries from Zambia to Indonesia begin to fill in Wikipedia’s blank spots.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, oer, online learning, open content, Open Education, openness, Wikipedia
The Journal of Medical Internet Research has published an article on using Wikipedia for health promotion. From the abstract:
Since April 2004, editors have formed a group called WikiProject Medicine to coordinate and discuss the English-language Wikipedia’s medical content. This paper, written by members of the WikiProject Medicine, discusses the intricacies, strengths, and weaknesses of Wikipedia as a source of health information and compares it with other medical wikis.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, ocw, oer, online learning, open content, Open Education, openness, Wikipedia
Doug Johnson has a new post on supporting Wikipedia. From the post:
Even very young students can and should be learning to consider the accuracy and potential bias of information sources.
Link and commentary by Stephen Downes.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged oer, open content, Open Education, openness, Wikipedia
Kathryn Zickuhr and Lee Rainie have published a paper looking at Wikipedia’s past and present. From the post:
In the scope of general online activities, using Wikipedia is more popular than sending instant messages (done by 47% of internet users) or rating a product, service, or person (32%), but is less popular than using social network sites (61%) or watching videos on sites like YouTube (66%).
Posted in Open Education
Tagged commons, e-learning, oer, online learning, open content, openness, Wikipedia
Casper Grathwohl has a new post on the development of Wikipedia since its inception. From the post:
That development should come as no surprise—a natural progression in any new knowledge system is for it to divide into layers of information authority. Not all information is created equal. The bottom layers (the most ubiquitous, whose sources are the most ephemeral, and with the least amount of validation) lead to layers with greater dependability, all the way to the highest layers, made up mostly of academic resources maintained and validated by academic publishers that use multiple peer reviews, trained editors, and scholarly reviewers.
Computing Education Blog has a new post arguing that visits to MIT OCW are similar to Wikipedia. From the post:
When I see that the average number of visits per visitor is less than 2, my sense is that MIT OCW is still more about looking up a single factoid (like Wikipedia), or trying it once then giving up, rather than a place to return frequently for studying.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, ocw, oer, open content, Open Education, Wikipedia
Wikipedia is turning 10 on January 15. A list of celebrations across the world has been posted.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged commons, ocw, oer, open content, Open Education, openness, Wikipedia
Daniel Ashton has published an article regarding contributors to Wikipedia and how it shapes their identity. From the abstract:
Focusing on how Wikipedia ‘service awards’ can identify and distinguish editors, this paper explores the disclosure of knowledge as it is intimately bound up with identity work. Examining contributions/edits to Wikipedia as disclosures highlights processes of identity management and work.
Also, Mike Linksvayer on his experience with his own Wikipedia article.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, ocw, oer, open content, Open Education, openness, Wikipedia
Lisa Katayama has posted an interview with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, about Creative Commons. From the interview:
I have always been a fan of CC’s approach as a “middle way.” For a long time, we were stuck in a debate about copyright that focused only on two categories of people: the creators who want to maintain their work under traditional copyright, and the “pirates” who want to steal that work and undermine it.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged ocw, oer, open content, Open Education, openness, Wikipedia
Dean Wilson has a new post noting that Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, has won the Gottlieb Duttweiler Award. The award has a cash prize equivalent of $104,000.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged ocw, oer, open content, open learning, openness, Wikipedia
