Research group on Open Science and Innovation: Eduard Aibar (PI), Maura Lerga, Josep Lladós, Antoni Meseguer and Julià Minguillón Funding: Wikipedia, Academia, and Science Eduard Aibar IN3 / Universitat Oberta de Catalunya Introduction  Exploring the interaction between Science and Peer Production through the case of Wikipedia  Context: Open Science, Open research movements, concerns about neoliberal trends in science policies  Two broad research questions: 1)What do scientists do and think about Wikipedia? 2)What does Wikipedia do to science? B. Wikipedia and academic culture  Private instances of use –whether professional or personal– are not matched by public uses.  Most faculty members think Wikipedia is not well regarded by their colleagues as a respectable source of information (53.2%) though they themselves do.  Those that think colleagues do not use it much (34.0%) significantly outnumber those who think they do (26.0%).  They do not recommend its use to students and even less to their colleagues.  Colleagues as strong role models (the institutional context is less important) → negative loop.  Faculty from STEM fields show a more positive attitude.  They are frequent users but prefer not to talk about it. Wikipedia seems to be for academics what porn is for polite dinner conversations. 1.Wikipedia and Academic Faculty  Large survey (50 questions) to all faculty members from two Spanish universities (Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya).  Universe = 3,639 people; 913 valid responses Some results: A.Quality assessment and use  Overall quality of Wikipedia articles is highly valued  Most faculty members are frequent users of Wikipedia (62.6% for personal matters and 55.3% for academic matters )  A relatively high percentage of them (13.5%) are registered users (while only 0.4% of Catalan population are).  Many (46.8 %) even see it as a useful teaching recourse (while only 18.8% don’t).  The common assumption that most faculty members perceive Wikipedia as an inaccurate and unreliable source of information is not supported by our survey. 2. Science in Wikipedia Analysis of the scientific content of Wikipedia (ongoing research!)  Recent studies show that Wikipedia has become the main channel for the public communication of science. Though scientists and R&D institutions are not aware of this! Basic research question: Is the non-expert character of the average Wikipedia editor actually shaping the way science is depicted in the free encyclopedia? Subquestions:  Are Wikipedia articles on science and technology more sensible to social issues around science and technology?  Do they reflect standard scientific consensus or give some room to minority positions in science?  Are the more controversial issues in Wikipedia also those more controversial in society at large?  What are controversies about?  How is the expert/lay divide managed in Wikipedia? Methods:  Selecting the corpus of S&T articles: algorithm finding clusters + 6-digit code of UNESCO nomenclature (60,108 articles in the Spanish Wikipedia.).  Cognitive maps  Qualitative analysis of talk pages  Analysis of references