Stepping Stones

In addition to learning more about this topic, I’m collecting these conversations so I can inform our school librarian about resources and references that she can use in her discussions with teaching staff. It appears there is quite a bit of confusion and misinformation about students and staff using Wikipedia so I do hope that these links add some light to the debate.
Wes Fryer (Moving at the Speed of Creativity)  captures in a podcast, a response from a Britannica official at Florida Educational Technology Conference. The podcast is titled “In Defences of Encyclopedia Britannica”. Also included in Wes’s post is a series of links that connects to other dialogues on this issue.

Podcast47: In Defense of Encyclopedia Britannica

In December 2005, Nature magazine published a controversial article arguing that WikiPedia was as accurate at worst or more accurate at best (considering it’s comparably larger size) than Encyclopedia Britannica. Last week at the Florida Educational Technology Conference, a Britannica employee spoke out in defense of the accuracy and greater value of Britannica compared to Wikipedia. Given Britannica’s formal release of a statement last week in response to that Nature article, and Nature’s subsequent response on March 23rd, this dialog is timely. This podcast is a recording (shared with persmission) of that conversation.

Program Length: 14 min, 29 sec
File size: 3.5 MB

(Click here to listen to this podcast)

Show notes for this podcast include:

1. December 2005 Nature Article: “Internet encyclopaedias go head to head”
2. My blog post from February 28th, “Wikipedia Accuracy”
3. Britannica’s Reponse to Nature (PDF) – “Fatally Flawed: Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal Nature”
4. Nature’s response to Britannica’s response: 23 March 2006 (PDF)
5. Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study By Andrew Orlowski
6. Wikipedia and open source by Nicholas Carr

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