Wikipedia as an Academic Reference:
Faculty Perspective
Johnny Snyder
josnyder@mesastate.edu
Mesa State College
Business Department - CIS
1100 North Ave.
Grand Junction, Colorado
81501
(970) 248-1722
Wikipedia as an Academic Reference:
Faculty Perspective
Abstract
Wikis are becoming popular with business and academia as a way to harvest, archive, and
manage knowledge. One of the most popular and well-known wikis is Wikipedia, the online
encyclopedia started by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. Since its inception, much has
been written (both pro and con) about Wikipedia; however, Wikipedia is one of the most popular
sites on the Internet today. As its popularity increases, more and more “net generation” students
will be utilizing its articles as reference sources for academic work. This paper explores the
emerging “wiki way” of Web 2.0 tools and highlights the good, the bad, and the management of
Wikipedia as an academic reference.
1. Introduction
Wikipedia is a rapidly growing phenomenon in the online world of collaborative (Web
2.0) activities. Since the advent of the public Internet, many types of shared activities have been
evolving, with massive multi-player online games leading the list of popular activities that have
stood the test of Internet “time.” However, a new type of collaborative activity is gaining
momentum, the wiki. As per Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, a wiki is “a web application
designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove and edit content” (Wikipedia, 2007b, para. 1).
The origin of the word wiki has its roots in the Hawaiian language and is found to be
derived from the phrase “awiwi, wikiwiki” which is translated to mean quick or fast (Hawaiian
Dictionary, 2007). Ward Cunningham is widely attributed for pioneering the first wiki in 1995
by writing server software that allowed any web page to be edited by any user (Szybalski, 2005).
Some wikis work like a library for a document in that users check out the document, modify the
document, then check it back in for other users to read, edit, or modify. Thus, a collected
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knowledge is contained within the document as well as archived through saving all previous
editions.
College students in 2008 (the so-called Google generation or net generation) have grown
up using web based resources and consider them to be a component of daily life (personal
observation in the classroom of a 21st century college; Murley, 2008). As such, it is not
surprising to see many reference lists stocked with web based articles, Internet sources and
hyperlinks. However, is the Web the most authoritative source for academic work? Moreover,
is Wikipedia an authoritative academic source given its dynamic nature? If society continues to
digitize journals, magazines, and encyclopedias, management of online content and its usage in
an academic arena will need to be addressed. This paper explores these ideas and pushes the
reader into the world of Wikipedia as an academic reference.
Many academics have strong opinions about Wikipedia, many of them negative.
Conversely, Randy Pausch of “The Last Lecture” has written for a traditional encyclopedia
(World Book) and being familiar with Wikipedia, summed up his experience:
I have not bought the latest set of World Books. In fact, having been selected to be an
author in the World Book, I now believe that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your
information, because I know what the quality control is for real encyclopedias. (Pausch,
2008, p. 42)
2. Literature Review
There have been many attempts to “measure” entries in Wikipedia for their value as
authoritative academic sources. Korfiatis, Poulos and Bokos (2006) pose the metric of “article
degree centrality” which is based on links to/from the article in question and has been used in
social network analysis and search engine metrics. This quantitative metric “grades” an article in
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Wikipedia based upon the number of edges (a concept from graph theory, viewed as links in this
construct) leading to or from an article. Brandes and Lerner (2007) also use a graph theoretic
approach in obtaining a “who revises whom” visual representation of article edits in Wikipedia.
This tracking metric attempts to identify vandalism and “edit wars” caused by differences of
opinion. The idea of “opinion” being expressed in an article divides article types into two
classifications:

scientific articles (e.g. linear equations, Shannon entropy, colony collapse disorder)

controversial articles (e.g. abortion, presidential candidates, gun control)
(Brandes and Lerner, 2007; Halavais and Lackaff, 2008)
Scientific articles, while opinion can play a part, primarily deal in known facts, while
controversial articles (see the Sara Palin edits on Wikipedia which resulted in Wikipedia
personnel posting: Edit warring / Content dispute: Hello! Please don't edit-war on our articles. It
slows the servers down) can have diametrically opposite viewpoints being expressed, thus
controversy and dispute occurring in article creation and subsequent editing. The examples
above illustrate that there is no clear dividing line between scientific articles and controversial
articles, particularly in respect to emerging scientific theories such as colony collapse disorder
(where worker bees suddenly disappear from the hive), the causes of which are currently being
researched. This is one of the greatest assets of Wikipedia, and a key finding in the paper by
Black (2008) “The Wikipedia concept is a potential model for more rapid and reliable
dissemination of scholarly knowledge” (p. 1). In addition, an often cited study by Nature in
2005 found that “Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science
entries” (Giles, 2005, p. 900).
Potthast, Stein, and Gerling (2008) also address vandalism and define it as a “classification
task” based on a proposed metric that identifies edits that could be vandalism. One result of
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vandalism in Wikipedia was the creation of “protected pages” which cannot be edited by the
general contributor to Wikipedia. The proposed edit must first be approved by a Wikipedia
internal editor charged with quality control of the article. Errors and vandalism do appear to be
corrected quickly, with some authors positing that vandalism in Wikipedia is usually repaired
within minutes (Brandes and Lerner, 2007; Murley, 2008).
Utilizing a different approach, Stvilia, Twidale, Gasser and Smith (2005) introduce ten
“information quality” problems that are qualitative in nature. The article quality metrics are:
accessibility, accuracy, authority, completeness, complexity, consistency, informativeness,
relevance, verifiability and volatility. Many of these metrics deal with the language of the article
and the culture of the contributor and are subjective by nature, adding the possibility of
controversy and dispute into articles. Two of the most studied metrics are accuracy and
completeness, and these ideas permeate the literature and are central to increasing article quality
in Wikipedia.
Ideas of accuracy and completeness have given rise to another thread in the literature
concerning Wikipedia, that of article maturity and author credibility. Halavais and Lackaff
(2008) assert that article quality can be measured against the number of edits occurring to the
article, inferring that more edits make an article “better” (more complete and accurate). They
note that there are exceptions to this rule, some of which are covered in the vandalism discussion
above (the most notable being edit wars). The paper by Snyder (2007) also addresses article
quality and completeness and proposes continuous functional representations to measure when
an article is complete and accurate. Both completeness and accuracy are functions of the number
of edits and editors, and this paper illustrates that the balance point (an article being both
complete and accurate), under this model, is an elusive target.
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Vuong, Lim, Sun, Le, Lauw, and Chang (2008), address article quality in a different manner,
that of controversy rank models. Controversy rank models attempt to determine which articles
are generating disputes within the editing process of article generation. Vuong, et al. define a
contributor to be controversial if they are likely to be involved in disputes with others. Their
model involves graph theory (relationships between article editors) and a measure of the
controversy of editors. These models are challenging due to:

the large number of articles in Wikipedia

diverse content among articles in Wikipedia

evolving content in articles in Wikipedia (Vuong, et al., 2008).
Dispute and controversy measurements can be placed on the author (editor) rather than the
article as posited by Adler and de Alfaro (2006). In this technical report, the authors measure the
“reputation” of article authors. This ranking would demonstrate how important an element of
content addition is from certain (ranked) authors. This metric takes into account:

text longevity – how long text in an article is allowed to remain before being re-written or
removed

edit longevity – how long before the entire edit is removed from an article.
The evaluation of the longevity of text and edits leads to another measure of the quality of the
text added or edit made. The addition to the quality metric is that of author reputation. More
reputable authors have better quality edits and text additions, thus more longevity to their edits.
Lastly, the authors posit that the age of the text in an article can be considered as a trust metric,
in that no edits have been made to the text in a specified time frame.
In addition to the concerns listed above, Wikipedia has received criticism due to the
inherent untrustworthiness of a publication that can be edited by anyone, which brings into
question the scope and balance of the articles (Chesney, 2006). Chesney’s study revealed that
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experts (individuals reading articles in their field) rated the accuracy of Wikipedia’s information
as high, but that 13 percent of the articles did contain errors. On the other hand, a study by Giles
(2005) found that “modest” differences exist in comparisons of articles in Wikipedia and
Encyclopedia Britannica, while Murley (2008) points out that while Wikipedia articles can
contain errors, the same is true of other secondary and tertiary resources. It is common practice
for newspapers, magazines, print encyclopedias, and other print media to publish errata as soon
as an error is discovered. Murley also notes that the greatest value of a Wikipedia article could
be its links to relevant sources outside of Wikipedia (Murley, 2008), something that traditional
encyclopedias lack.
Another follower of Wikipedia and an unlikely ally (Wikipedia’s print “competition”) is
the international journal of science, Nature. The editors at Nature view Wikipedia with a
skeptical eye, but openly advocate for its success. In an editorial dated December 2005 (during
the initial “rise” of article contribution and public viewing of articles), the following statements
are made: “backing up a claim with a peer-reviewed reference, for example, makes a world of
difference” and “to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia and to see how much it
can improve” (p. 890). Finally, the editors push for involvement by the research community by
stating “researchers should read Wikipedia cautiously and amend it enthusiastically” (p. 890),
illustrating their support for doing what Nature does, publishing current scientific findings
(Nature, 2005).
The complexity of Wikipedia, with its internal and external links opens up the collective
knowledge sets of any entity on the Internet. It is this opportunity that both fascinates and
terrifies researchers as to the accuracy of the information. Nevertheless, “Online encyclopedias,
unrestricted by weight, volume, and time spent flipping pages, hold out the promise of being
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truly comprehensive” (Halavais and Lackaff, 2008, p.433). Wikipedia is emerging as a source
that is broader than any other single source of knowledge in human history. Thus, to construct
and complete this broadening of knowledge, a broad base of contributors must be utilized.
3. The Wiki Way
The wiki way is not a new notion; businesses have been trying to get the customer to aid
in their workload since the advent of commerce. Many farms have “U-pick-em” areas and the
buffet line is not a new concept. However, with the rise in popularity of the Internet and ecommerce, a new method of accomplishing the wiki way has emerged. Wikipedia is utilizing
this vast online workforce to manage the inputting, modifying, updating, and verifying of its
entries. Further, under correct management, Wikipedia could become one of the world’s largest
repositories of digitized knowledge.
Below is a short list of wiki applications currently on the Internet.

Wikipedia – users building an encyclopedia

Second Life – users building their world

RateMyProfessor.com – students adding content about faculty

digg.com – users rating articles to be read

MySpace.com – users posting their own personal content

YouTube – users posting their own videos

Curriki.org –faculty exchanging curriculum ideas
These sites illustrate the growing popularity of Web 2.0 applications and the fact that users enjoy
generating content for providers of web sites. As the net generation students enter higher
education and the workforce, both arenas must manage these individuals and their ways of
mining knowledge to best utilize their potential. As an illustration, the global top ten list on
Alexa.com (Alexa, 2008) reveals that the net generation is interested in three main themes.
These sites, their themes, and their rankings are given in the lists below:
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Portal Applications
Yahoo.com (1)
MSN.com (6)
Yahoo Japan (10)
Search Engines
Google.com (2)
Windows Live (4)
Wiki Applications
YouTube.com (3)
MySpace (7)
Facebook (5)
Wikipedia.com (8)
Blogger.com (9)
This list illustrates that wiki applications are some of the most popular and that Web 2.0
applications have a huge fan base and show no indications of slowing in the future. Already,
sites like MySpace and Facebook are being utilized in the hiring (and firing) arena to evaluate
employees on items not contained in their resumes.
Wikipedia has been continually gaining in popularity (it has moved from number nine to
number eight in the global web rankings in the past year (Alexa, 2007, 2008)) and usage as
illustrated in Figure 1 below which gives the “reach” or percentage of Internet users (who have
the Alexa toolbar) visiting the site:
Figure 1
The reach of Wikipedia (Alexa, 2007)
As can be seen from Figure 1, the reach of Wikipedia has been growing exponentially since its
inception on January 15, 2001, with accelerated growth taking off in 2005 (Wikipedia, 2007c).
In addition to the astounding growth rate of users accessing the Wikipedia site, the English
version of Wikipedia boasts over 2.6 million entries with approximately one billion words,
which is about 25 times the size of the Encyclopædia Britannica, the largest (print) English
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language encyclopedia. In addition, Wikipedia is growing internationally, boasting over 9.25
million articles in 250 languages (Wikipedia, 2008a).
In the academic realm, wikis are gaining popularity and usage in the classroom and
libraries (Richardson, 2006; Stephens, 2006; Kamel-Boulos, Maramba and Wheeler, 2006), as
well as in the research arena (Voss, 2006; Hill, Gaudiot, Hall, Marks, Prinetto, and Baglio,
2006). This trend can be seen in Figure 2, which graphs the number of papers appearing in
conference proceedings and journals which address the topic of Wikipedia.
Figure 2
Academic papers relating to Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 2008b)
Growth of Academic Papers
Concerning Wikipedia
80
Number of Papers
70
60
50
40
Journals
30
Conferences
20
10
0
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Figure 2 is obtained from data on Wikipedia’s site and is not exhaustive. In performing a Google
Scholar search for the term “Wikipedia,” 20,200 hits were returned, illustrating the academic
interest in the subject. In light of this interest in Wikipedia and the Web, these dynamic content
sites will be appearing in literature and reference lists, forcing the academic community to
manage the soundness of the citation and of the site. This verification of information will be a
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task for students, faculty, and other interested parties to undertake. Table 1 gives an idea of
where Wikipedia is beginning to become established in the academic community.
Table 1
Users and uses of Wikipedia in the academic arena
User
Efraim Turban, E-Commerce Textbook
(Turban, et al., 2008)
Douglas Samuelson – OR/MS Today Article
(Samuelson, 2008)
International Association for Computer Information
Systems 2007 Call for Papers (IACIS, 2007)
Paper appearing in IJKLO Vol. 3
(Parker and Chao, 2007)
Paper appearing in JISE Vol. 19(2)
(White, Longenecker, McKell, and Harris, 2008)
Usage
Wikipedia referenced for problem
assignments, definition of “online
intermediaries,” Wikipedia used as an ecommerce application case
Definition of “Colony Collapse Disorder”
for honey bee colonies
Wikipedia definition for “globalization”
Utilize Wikipedia as a teaching tool
Wikipedia definition of “assessment”
Table 1 illustrates that Wikipedia is gaining momentum in the academic arena, and a
recent survey by eWEEK (2009) of their readers revealed that blogs and wikis are the Web 2.0
applications that are most frequently appearing in industry. Almost half of the respondents
reported that wikis are being deployed at their organizations. If these numbers hold, or grow,
students need to be trained in the appropriate use of wikis, including Wikipedia.
For all the good of Wikipedia and other wikis, there is a dark side to publicly accessible,
freely altered content. In a high profile case, a Nashville area resident changed the Wikipedia
entry of John Seigenthaler, a one-time administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy, to read that
Mr. Seigenthaler was involved in the Kennedy assassinations. The Nashville area resident
claimed to have posted this to “fool” a colleague (Goodin, 2005; Said, 2005). While the article
was eventually corrected, the personal damage was done. John Seigenthaler responded to the
false content posted about him in an article in USA Today and explained how difficult it was to
uncover who had posted the malicious information about him. His summary thought about
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Wikipedia was “I am interested in letting many people know that Wikipedia is a flawed and
irresponsible research tool” (Seigenthaler, 2005, p.2). It should be noted that his critique is
based on a sample of size one, and was exceedingly personal as it was his biography.
The John Seigenthaler case (there have been other high-profile misuses of Wikipedia)
began the debate on policing Wikipedia rule changes for editing entries on Wikipedia and who is
ultimately responsible and legally liable for content on a wiki space. (See Ken Meyers’ (2006)
article for an informative legal treatment of the Seigenthaler case and applying the
communications decency act to Wikipedia.)
The Seigenthaler article also points to one of the major dividing lines on Wikipedia
content, that of controversial articles versus scientific articles. While it is relatively easy to post
“opinion” about a subject such as an individual’s biography, and have this opinion escape
examination, it is much more difficult to do the same in an article concerning scientific facts
such as the quadratic equation. This discrepancy in article accuracy has been noted (Wikipedia,
2008e), and many attempts to identify faulty information, vandalism, dispute, author credibility,
and controversy are currently being debated in the academic community (Vuong, et al., 2008;
Brandes and Lerner, 2007; Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007; Potthast, et al., 2008; Braun and
Schmidt, 2007). Wikipedia itself recognizes the issue of credibility and readily publicizes the
issue in an attempt to solicit ideas (Web 2.0!) and procedures to correct these issues (Wikipedia,
2008e). Quoting Wikipedia, on their viewpoint toward using Wikipedia as an academic
reference and/or teaching tool,
If you're a professor, teacher, or student within the college community, we encourage you
to use Wikipedia and/or Wikiversity in your class to demonstrate how an open content
website works (or doesn't). Many of these projects have resulted in both advancing the
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student's knowledge and useful content being added to Wikipedia. (Wikipedia, 2008f,
para. 1)
The key issue is the parenthetical acknowledgement that this entire experiment might not work!
By expressing their own doubt, the Wikipedia management team is acknowledging that quality
issues exist with the content and that they are concerned with improving their product.
3.1 Quality Control at Wikipedia
Wikipedia is attempting to make their articles accurate and complete. Wikipedia’s
reliability is measured internally using the following set of criteria:

Accuracy of information provided within articles

Comprehensiveness, scope and coverage within articles and in the range of articles

Susceptibility to, and exclusion and removal of, false information

Susceptibility to editorial and systemic bias

Identification of reputable third-party sources as citations (Wikipedia, 2007d).
The criteria used by Wikipedia parallels the concerns of authors in this subject area and three
points are constantly re-enforced throughout the literature: accuracy, completeness, and reputable
third-party sources.
In a first attempt at an edited Web 2.0 encyclopedia, the Wikipedia: Version 1.0 Editorial
Team/Assessment (Wikipedia, 2008c) project reviews articles and “grades” the articles based
upon a consensus measure, which can be a subjective rating of the articles based on team
member experience. The grading scheme is illustrated in Table 2. Observing the article’s grade
is an option that a registered user of Wikipedia can enable under their “my preferences” menu,
“gadgets” tab. The benefit to viewing an article’s grade is knowing where the article “stands” as
far as usage as an academic reference.
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The main focus on grading an article is how complete the article is, but content and
language quality play important roles as well (Wikipedia, 2008c). If an article has attained FA or
FL - class status, it is considered complete and thus usable as a general academic reference,
while an A – class article, while complete, would benefit by having more specific references
added before being used as an academic source. Below A – class articles need external sources
for verification and augmentation of the topic being discussed in order to be utilized as an
academic source. I.e. the article authors must “complete” the articles use as an academic
reference by seeking verification of the information from other reputable sources. These other
sources should also verify the accuracy of the content, thus building trust in the information. The
expected “reader’s experience” for each graded article is given in Table 2.
Table 2
Reader experience of graded (ranked) articles in Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 2008c)
FA or FL
Professional,
outstanding,
a definitive
source for
encyclopedic
information.
A
Very
useful.
Fairly
complete
treatment
of subject.
Good for
nonexperts.
GA
Useful to
general
readers.
Approaching
the quality of
a
professional
encyclopedia.
B
No reader
should be
left
wanting,
but
content
may not
be
complete
for
research.
C
Start
Stub
Useful to a
Some
Little more
casual
meaningful
than a
reader.
content, but dictionary
Not a
most
definition
complete readers will
of the
picture,
seek further
topic.
not ready information.
to be an
academic
source.
The bold border in Table 2 marks the dividing line between complete, accurate, reviewed articles
with external sources (FA, FL, and A grade), thus suitable for use as an academic reference,
while other graded articles could use outside sources and further research to verify the
information contained.
4. Statistics on Wikipedia Usage
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As a first step in exploring how to manage Wikipedia as an academic reference, a survey
instrument was developed in the spring semester of 2009 and distributed to 321 full-time, parttime, and adjunct faculty at a medium sized western college. This survey is an initial attempt at
measuring how faculty view, use, and manage Wikipedia in their classes, research, and personal
life. The survey is included as Appendix A. As a starting point, faculty perceptions, viewpoints,
and group consensus are explored using the reported statistics from the survey. Issues to be
explored are contained in the following lists.
Faculty awareness of
a) article controversy affects Wikipedia usage and trust.
b) article vandalism affects Wikipedia usage and trust.
c) protected pages affects Wikipedia usage and trust.
d) article rank feature affects Wikipedia usage and trust.
e) article revision history affects Wikipedia usage and trust.
f) article editing policies affects Wikipedia usage and trust.
Faculty discipline affects:
a) Wikipedia usage and trust
b) viewpoint as to student usage of Wikipedia in classes
c) grade on assignment due to Wikipedia usage.
5. Survey Results
There were 80 surveys returned, for a return rate of 25%. From these 80 surveys, 24
faculty members reported that Wikipedia is not used, while 56 faculty members reported that
they use Wikipedia in some fashion. The demographics between the Wikipedia users and nonusers are remarkably similar and are summarized in Table 3.
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Table 3
Demographics between Wikipedia users and non-users
Demographic
Age (in years)
Non-controversial discipline
Controversial discipline
Discipline not reported
Wikipedia Users (n = 56)
𝑥̅ = 49.7
35.7%
28.6%
35.7%
Wikipedia Non-Users (n = 24)
𝑥̅ = 49.6
29.2%
33.3%
37.5%
The discipline classifications as “controversial” and “non-controversial” follows the
Wikipedia article classification set forth in the papers by Brandes and Lerner (2007) as well as
Halavias and Lackaff (2008). In other terms, this classification could be between Humanities
and Natural Sciences, where articles in the Humanities classification generate more controversy
due to the presence of interpretation and opinion, while the articles in the Natural Sciences
follow sets of rules, or laws. The reasons given for not using of Wikipedia are summarized in
the Pareto chart labeled Figure 3.
Figure 3
Reasons for faculty not using Wikipedia
Reasons given for not using
Wikipedia
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Not
Trustworthy/Not
Reliable Source of
Information
Do Not Need
No Reason Listed Believe in the "Old
Way" (book
learning)
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Figure 3 establishes that faculty surveyed who do not use Wikipedia believe the information to
be unreliable and untrustworthy. Some of the specific comments given included no peer review,
anyone can edit, and no trust in the site.
The group of faculty that use Wikipedia reported usage statistics of:

using Wikipedia three times per week (on average) during the school year (with a
standard deviation of 4.0)
o Science faculty (n = 19) had a mean of 3.10 and a standard deviation of
3.65, while Humanities faculty (n = 16) had a mean of 2.06 and a standard
deviation of 1.69. There was no statistical difference in usage between the
groups

using Wikipedia three times per week (on average) during semester breaks (with a
standard deviation of 4.3)
o Science faculty (n = 19) had a mean of 2.58 and a standard deviation of
3.13, while Humanities faculty had a mean of 2.44 and a standard
deviation of 3.81. There was no statistical difference in usage between the
groups
Further, Table 4 summarizes the type of Wikipedia usage during the fall semester of 2008.
Table 4
Faculty usage of Wikipedia
Type of usage
for an academic paper
for other research
for independent learning (pleasure)
alternate types of usage:
 initial research on a topic
 general topic review
 external links to topic
Yes
5
38
50
No
51
18
6
32
38
22
24
18
34
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Table 4 illustrates that faculty shy away from using Wikipedia as an academic reference, but are
increasingly likely to use it as a general information source and for pleasure. Some of the
general statistical results from the survey are summarized in Table 5.
Table 5
Statistics for awareness and view categories
Minimum Maximum Mean
Std.
Deviation
Category
N
View_Gen_Ed
46
1
5
2.85
1.032
View_Major
49
1
5
2.47
1.260
Aware_Controversial
56
1
5
3.52
1.489
Aware_Vandalism
56
1
5
2.98
1.590
Aware_Protected_Pages
56
1
5
2.57
1.683
Aware_Article_Rank
56
1
5
2.07
1.373
Aware_Article_Revision_H
istory
56
1
5
2.98
1.567
Aware_Edited_Anyone
55
1
5
4.02
1.472
Table 5 highlights that faculty are most aware of Wikipedia’s editing policies that have stemmed
from the high profile (and negative) cases in the media. The second largest awareness average is
from the Aware_Controversial category. All other awareness categories have averages of less
than three, indicating that faculty are not very aware of the quality issues of current concern with
Wikipedia. The category that faculty are least aware of is that of Article Rank (see Table 2)
which is a primary indicator of how appropriate a Wikipedia article is for use as an academic
reference. Table 5 also illustrates that faculty view the use of Wikipedia in their general
education classes neutrally (mean = 2.85) and usage of Wikipedia in their major classes more
negatively (mean = 2.47).
In order to more fully evaluate awareness, a measure of consensus was added to Table 5
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and is given here as Table 6.
Table 6
Statistics for Wikipedia use in an academic paper with consensus
Minimum Maximum Mean
Std.
Consensus
Deviation
Category
N
View_Gen_Ed
46
1
5
2.85
1.032
0.73
View_Major
49
1
5
2.47
1.260
0.63
Aware_Controversial
56
1
5
3.52
1.489
0.54
Aware_Vandalism
56
1
5
2.98
1.590
0.51
Aware_Protected_Pages
56
1
5
2.57
1.683
0.44
Aware_Article_Rank
56
1
5
2.07
1.373
0.59
Aware_Article_Revision_History
56
1
5
2.98
1.567
0.50
Aware_Edited_Anyone
55
1
5
4.02
1.472
0.56
A measure of consensus is added to the results (see the paper by Tastle and Wierman
(2007) for a complete description of the consensus measure used) to measure the strength of the
faculty group viewpoint toward each issue. A value of 0.00 indicates no consensus in the group,
while a value of 1.00 indicates complete consensus, or agreement, within the group. There is no
fixed boundary for determining consensus, but it is generally believed that a consensus score of
0.80 signifies consensus (Tastle, 2009).
The largest consensus value is that belonging to the View_Gen_Ed category, indicating
that faculty members are somewhat in agreement about the usage of Wikipedia in their general
education classes. Other than that, the lack of consensus identifies a trust issue with Wikipedia
and will be the subject of further research.
Table 7 divides the faculty into science and Humanities categories and evaluates
differences in the awareness issues present in the survey.
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Table 7
Differences in awareness
Awareness Category
Aware of
Controversial Articles
Aware of Vandalism
Aware of Protected
Pages
Aware of Article
Rank Feature
Aware of Article
Revision History
Aware that Articles
can be Edited by
Anyone
Science Faculty
𝑥̅ = 3.35
s = 2.24
n = 20
𝑥̅ = 2.75
s = 2.72
n = 20
𝑥̅ = 2.45
s = 2.58
n = 20
𝑥̅ = 2.05
s = 1.63
n = 20
𝑥̅ = 2.95
s = 2.05
n = 20
𝑥̅ = 3.35
s = 3.08
n = 20
Humanities Faculty
𝑥̅ = 3.06
s = 1.73
n = 16
𝑥̅ = 2.38
s = 2.25
n = 16
𝑥̅ = 2.06
s = 2.60
n = 16
𝑥̅ = 1.50
s = 0.67
n = 16
𝑥̅ = 2.69
s = 2.76
n = 16
𝑥̅ = 4.60
s = 1.26
n = 15
Statistics (t-test)
t = 0.53
p = 0.603
t = 0.71
p = 0.481
t = 0.72
p = 0.477
t = 1.57
p = 0.126
t = 0.50
p = 0.620
t = -2.56
p = 0.016
Table 7 indicates no difference in awareness between the faculty groups except in the “Aware
that Articles can be Edited by Anyone” category. This is not surprising as faculty from the
Humanities rely on more controversial types of work from which to harvest information. More
interestingly and corresponding to the previous result is Table 8, which summarizes the feelings
of faculty on the use of Wikipedia in their general education classes versus their major classes.
Table 8
Faculty view of Wikipedia in their classes
View of Wikipedia
in:
General Education
Classes
Major Classes
Science Faculty
Humanities Faculty
𝑥̅ = 3.12
s = 0.86
n = 17
𝑥̅ = 2.68
s = 1.34
n = 19
𝑥̅ = 2.17
s = 0.24
n = 12
𝑥̅ = 1.77
s = 1.53
n = 13
Statistics (t-test)
t = 2.88
p = 0.007
t = 2.11
p = 0.043
Page | 19
Table 8 illustrates a difference in how faculty from the Natural Sciences and Humanities view
Wikipedia in their classes. It is uniformly seen that faculty from the Natural Sciences view
Wikipedia in a more positive light than do faculty from the Humanities.
Lastly, Figure 4 gives an indication as to the penetration of Wikipedia concerns into the
syllabus, grading, and registered user categories as viewed by faculty. While faculty are willing
to reduce a grade due to Wikipedia usage, many do not have a use statement in their syllabus, or
an account on Wikipedia’s web site.
Figure 4
Syllabus, grading and registered user results
Wikipedia in the Syllabus,
Grading, and Usage Domains
60
55
50
50
38
40
30
Yes
16
20
10
5
1
No
2
1
0
No Answer
0
Wikipedia Use
Statement in
Syllabus
Grade Reduced
Because
Wikipedia Used
Registered User
of Wikipedia
6. Conclusions
The net-generation is beginning to enter the academic arena, and with them come new
tools and new uses for these tools. One of these tools, Wikipedia, has the size and popularity
levels that make it a formidable knowledge base. Faculty need to manage the use of these webbased resources in an academic environment as a mechanism for quality control. Faculty are not
using Wikipedia for academic purposes due to issues of trust in the site. However, as this paper
Page | 20
and survey have shown, a lack of consensus on the quality issues and responses to these issues
could hamper progress toward using Wikipedia as an academic reference. The results indicate
another underlying construct, that of trust in Wikipedia that should be studied further.
Awareness of quality issues in Wikipedia also had a lack of consensus, with the
negatively perceived issues which destroy trust such as

editing practices (anyone can edit)

controversy in articles

vandalism in articles
being the ones that faculty members are most aware of; while the positively perceived issues
which can build trust such as

article rank feature

protected pages

article revision history
being the ones that faculty members are least aware of. Trust is enhanced in an online world via
usage and knowledge of the site in question. Wikipedia is trying to build trust by ranking
articles, by establishing more stringent editing practices, and by protecting pages that are being
or are subject to being vandalized. Awareness of these quality issues will aid faculty in better
managing Wikipedia as an academic reference in the future.
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Page | 23
Appendix A
STATE COLLEGE SURVEY ON WIKIPEDIA USAGE
Your participation in this study will require completion of this questionnaire. This should take approximately 5 minutes of your time. Your participation
will be anonymous and you will not be contacted again in the future. By completing and returning this questionnaire you are giving your consent to
participate in my research. Your responses on the questionnaire are anonymous and you should not put any identifying information on it anywhere.
You can stop filling out this survey at any time. I will be happy to answer any questions you have about this study. If you have further questions about
this project or if you have a research-related problem, you may contact researcher. If you have any questions about your rights as a research
participant you may contact researcher.
Demographic Information
Gender:
 Male  Female
Year of birth:
Teaching area: (please list discipline) __________________________________________
1. Do you use Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia?
 Yes, please continue to the next question.
 No. Why not? __________________________________________________________________
Thank-you for your participation. Please fold, tape, and deposit in campus mail.
2. How often do you use Wikipedia in a typical
___________times in a school week
school week?
3. How often do you use Wikipedia in a typical
___________times in a non-school week
Summer or Christmas break (i.e. non-school) week?
4. Did you use Wikipedia for an academic paper in
 Yes
Fall 2008?
 No
5. Did you use Wikipedia for other research in Fall
 Yes
2008?
 No
6. Did you use Wikipedia for pleasure (independent
 Yes
learning) in Fall 2008?
 No
7. How do you use Wikipedia?  Initial research on a topic  General topic review
 External links to topic
 Other: ____________________________________
Please circle your response, where 1 = very negatively, 3 = neutral, and 5 = very positively
8. How do you view Wikipedia in your gen ed classes?
(100 – 200 level classes)
9. How do you view Wikipedia in your major classes?
(300 – 400 level classes)
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
Please circle your response, where 1 = not very aware, 3 = somewhat aware, and 5 = very aware
10. Are you aware of controversial articles in
Wikipedia?
11. Are you aware of vandalism in Wikipedia?
12. Are you aware that there are “protected pages” in
Wikipedia?
13. Are you aware of the article rank feature in
Wikipedia?
14. Are you aware of the article revision history in
Wikipedia?
15. Are you aware that Wikipedia articles, unless
protected, can be edited by “anyone?”
16. Do you include a “Wikipedia use statement” in
your syllabi?
17. Have you ever reduced a grade due to
using Wikipedia as an academic reference?
18. Are you a registered user of Wikipedia? (I.e. do
you have a login name at the Wikipedia site?)
Please fold, tape, and deposit in campus mail.
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
 Yes
 No
 Yes
 No
 Yes
 No