Wikipedia as an Academic Reference: Managing Online Information Retrieval Johnny Snyder Mesa State College

History of Wikis First wiki developed by Ward Cunningham in 1995 Wiki derived from the Hawaiian phrase “awiwi, wikiwiki” which translates to quick or fast. (Hawaiian Dictionary, 2007) 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

History of Wikipedia Launched on January 15, 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger (Geekipedia, 2007) 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Number of Articles Source Number of Approved Articles Number of Articles in Progress Timeframe Nupedia Citizendium11011,8009/ present Wikipedia for Schools /09 edition Wikipedia Unknown (est. 10,000) 3,041,2471/ present Encyclopedia Britannica (print) 500,000~ present 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Academic Interest in Wikipedia 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Academic Interest in Wikipedia Article Degree Centrality (Korfiatis, Poulos and Bokos, 2006) Vandalism and Edit Wars (Brandes and Lerner, 2007) Information Quality Metrics (Stvilia, Twidale, Gasser and Smith, 2005) Article Quality, Halavais and Lackaff (2008) Controversy Rank Models, (Vuong, Lim, Sun, Le, Lauw, and Chang, 2008) 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Growth of Wikipedia (Alexa, 2007; Alexa,2009) Currently: oscillating between 8 – 12% 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

How I Became Interested Mountain Plains Management Conference

More References to Wikipedia... UserUsage Efraim Turban, E-Commerce Textbook (Turban, et al., 2008) Wikipedia referenced for problem assignments, definition of “online intermediaries,” Wikipedia used as an e- commerce application case Douglas Samuelson – OR/MS Today Article (Samuelson, 2008) Definition of “Colony Collapse Disorder” for honey bee colonies International Association for Computer Information Systems 2007 Call for Papers (IACIS, 2007) Wikipedia definition for “globalization” Paper appearing in IJKLO Vol. 3 (Parker and Chao, 2007) Utilize Wikipedia as a teaching tool Paper appearing in JISE Vol. 19(2) (White, Longenecker, McKell, and Harris, 2008) Wikipedia definition of “assessment” 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Problems with Wikipedia John Seigenthaler - Essjay Controversy - (Tong, 2007) 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference God King or Benevolent Dictator Developers Stewards Oversight Bureaucrat Administrator (or Sysop) Registered User Anonymous User Banned Users and Bots

Solution Attempts by Wikipedia Ranking of Articles Protecting Articles Addition of Reputable Sources Accurate and Complete Articles Article Rank Reader Experience FA or FLEncyclopedic Information AFairly Complete GA Useful to General Audience B Not Complete for Research CUseful to Casual Reader Start Most Will Seek Further Information StubDictionary Definition 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Solution Attempts by Others Harvesting and Editing Wikipedia Information for Schools 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

My Study Created a Survey in spring 2009 Administered it to: ◦ Faculty ◦ Students 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Usage of Wikipedia (Compete, 2008) 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Questions About Wikipedia Usage Usage statistics Viewpoint on Wikipedia usage Awareness of Wikipedia activity Comparison between faculty and student perspectives 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Basic Faculty Statistics Demographic Wikipedia Users (n = 56) Wikipedia Non-Users (n = 24) Age (in years) = 49.7 = 49.6 Non-controversial discipline 35.7%29.2% Controversial discipline28.6%33.3% Discipline not reported35.7%37.5% 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference Non-controversial discipline: Sciences Controversial discipline: Humanities and Social Sciences (Brandes and Lerner, 2007; Halavais and Lackaff, 2008)

Basic Faculty Statistics (2) Type of usageYesNo for an academic paper551 for other research3818 for independent learning (pleasure) 506 alternate types of usage:  initial research on a topic  general topic review  external links to topic Mountain Plains Management Conference

Basic Faculty Statistics (3) CategoryNMinimumMaximumMean Std. Deviation Consensus View_Gen_Ed View_Major Aware_ Controversial Aware_ Vandalism Aware_Protected _Pages Aware_Article_ Rank Aware_Article_ Revision_History Aware_Edited_ Anyone Mountain Plains Management Conference 1 = very negatively, not aware 5 = very positively, very aware 0 = no consensus, 1 = complete consensus

Consensus 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference (Tastle, Wierman, 2007)

Faculty Statistics by Discipline View of Wikipedia in: Science Faculty Humanities Faculty Statistics (t-test) General Education Classes 3.12 s = 0.86 n = s = 0.24 n = 12 t = 2.88 p = Major Classes 2.68 s = 1.34 n = s = 1.53 n = 13 t = 2.11 p = Mountain Plains Management Conference

Faculty Statistics by Discipline (2) Awareness Category Science FacultyHumanities FacultyStatistics (t-test) Aware of Controversial Articles 3.35 s = 2.24 n = s = 1.73 n = 16 t = 0.53 p = Aware of Vandalism 2.75 s = 2.72 n = s = 2.25 n = 16 t = 0.71 p = Aware of Protected Pages 2.45 s = 2.58 n = s = 2.60 n = 16 t = 0.72 p = Aware of Article Rank Feature 2.05 s = 1.63 n = s = 0.67 n = 16 t = 1.57 p = Aware of Article Revision History 2.95 s = 2.05 n = s = 2.76 n = 16 t = 0.50 p = Aware that Articles can be Edited by Anyone 3.35 s = 3.08 n = s = 1.26 n = 15 t = p = Mountain Plains Management Conference

Faculty Syllabus and Grading Concerns 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Faculty Gender Differences No significant differences were found in usage or awareness categories Mountain Plains Management Conference

Student Statistics CategoryNMinimumMaximumMean Std. Deviation View_Gen_Ed View_Major Other_Students_ View View_as_Source Aware_ Controversial Aware_ Vandalism Aware_Protected _Pages Aware_Article Rank Aware_Article_ Revision_History Aware_Edited_ Anyone Mountain Plains Management Conference 1 = very negatively, not aware 5 = very positively, very aware 0 = no consensus, 1 = complete consensus

Faculty to Student Comparison CategoryFacultyStudentsStatistics (t-test) School Year Usage 2.98 s = 4.07 n = s = 2.61 n = 347 t = 2.48 p = 0.01 Non-School Year Usage 3.02 s = 4.37 n = s = 4.32 n = 352 t = 1.69 p = 0.09 View in Gen Ed 2.85 s = 1.03 n = s = 0.94 n = 343 t = 3.35 p = 0.00 View in Major 2.47 s = 1.26 n = s = 1.06 n = 334 t = 1.62 p = 0.11 All Awareness Categories Equal Awareness 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Student to Student Comparison Category_1Category_2Statistics (t-test) View in Gen Ed 2.35 s = 0.94 n = 343 View in Major 2.20 s = 1.06 n = 334 t = 1.94 p = 0.05 View in Gen Ed 2.35 s = 0.94 n = 343 Other Students View 3.62 s = 0.85 n = 343 t = p = 0.00 View in Major 2.20 s = 1.06 n = 334 Other Students View 3.62 s = 0.85 n = 343 t = p = Mountain Plains Management Conference

Conclusion Academic interest in Wikipedia is growing There is no consensus on usage More work...correlation and association studies Largest encyclopedia in history 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Management of Wikipedia Management of Wikipedia: ◦ i) Do not allow usage ◦ ii) Allow usage with other corroborating source(s) ◦ iii) Allow usage 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Questions? Comments? 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference (Frauenfelder, 2007; Greenberg, 2007)

Questions? Comments? 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

Comments? Questions? 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference What would Ambrose Bierce, author of “The Devil’s Dictionary” think about Wikipedia or Wiktionary?

Viewpoint “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) 2009 Mountain Plains Management Conference

References Alexa (2007). Wikipedia. Retrieved July 3, 2007 from: Brandes, U. and Lerner, J. (2007). Visual analysis of controversy in user- generated encyclopedias. Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics in Science and Technology. Compete (2008c). Personal communication for Wikipedia usage data. Frauenfelder, M. (2007). Make Everything Better. Wired 15(8). p. 103 Greenberg, J. (2007). Make Everything Better (picture). Wired 15(8). p. 102 Geekipedia (2007). A supplement to Wired: Encyclopedia Smackdown. Halavais, A., and Lackaff, D. (2008). An analysis of topical coverage of Wikipedia. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(2), p Hawaiian Dictionary (2000). The Coconut Boyz Hawaiian Dictionary. Retrieved May 29, 2007 from: Howe, J. (2007). Breaking the News. Wired 15(8). p Mountain Plains Management Conference

References (2) IACIS (2007). IACIS 2007 Call for Papers. Retrieved August 20, 2007 from: Korfiatis, N., Poulos, M., and Bokos, G. (2006). Evaluating authoritative sources using social networks: an insight from Wikipedia. Online Information Review 30(3), Parker, K. and Chao, J. (2007). Wiki as a teaching tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects 3, p Pausch, R. (2008). The Last Lecture. New York: Hyperion. Samuelson, D. (2008). An Ominous Buzz: Could honeybee colony collapse disorder pose serious threat to civilization? Retrieved December 18, 2008 from: Stvilia, B., Twidale, M., Gasser, L. and Smith, L. (2005). Information quality discussions in Wikipedia, Proceedings of ICKM05, Mountain Plains Management Conference

References (3) Tastle, W. and Wierman, M. (2007). Consensus and dissention: A measure of ordinal dispersion. International Journal of Approximate Reasoning 45(3), p Tong, Z. (2007). Sir, please come with me for the Google search. Wired 15(10). p. 58 Turban, E., King, D., McKay, J., Marshall, P., Lee, J., and Viehland, D. (2008). Electronic Commerce 2008: A Managerial Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Vuong, B., Lim, E., Sun, A., Le, M., Lauw, H., and Chang, K. (2008). On ranking controversies in Wikipedia: Models and evaluation. Proceedings of WSDM 2008 White, B., Longenecker, H., McKell, L., and Harris, A. (2008). Assessment: Placing the emphasis on learning in information systems programs and classes. Journal of Information systems Education, 19(2), p Mountain Plains Management Conference