Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica
Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica
Nature study covered side-by-side comparison of scientific topics
CNN.com Thursday, December 15, 2005; Posted: 10:28 a.m. EST (15:28 GMT)
"Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday."
My hunch is that the term wiki probably gave term podcast a run for its money when the New Oxford American Dictionary was voting on the Word of the Year. It seems everywhere I look there is something about wikipedia or other wiki things. The Chronical of Higher Education has a news article on a proposal to the create a Wikiversity, an open electronic institution of learning.
I have been always been a little leery about using Wikipedia for any real research. My use of Wikipedia has been mainly for the settling of bar bets and movie trivia. The idea of a student using Wikipedia as a resource homework, research papers, and other school work gives a small case of the willies. What positively frightens me is when I hear medical students looking up medical definitions and information on Wikipedia.
Maybe my fears are misplaced. According to a special report in Nature v.438 p. 900-901 December 15, 2005, Internet encyclopaedias go head to head (full text to subscribers only), Nature sent entries (on a broad range of scientific disciplines) from both Wikipedia and Britannica to experts for peer review. Reviewers did not know which entry came from which product. Reviewers found eight "serious errors," four from each encyclopedia. Reviewers did find many other factual errors such as omissions and misleading statements. Wikipedia had 162 factual errors and Britannica had 123.
Hmm, it seems that Wikipedia and Britannica are on pretty equal ground. One would assume would be a huge boost to Wikipedia and a huge downer to Britannica. Both Wikipedia and Britannica are looking at ways to improve their accuracy. Wikipedia plans to begin testing a new way to review the accuracy of its articles. Britannica researchers plan to review the Nature study and correct any errors discovered.
Perhaps some of my fears about Wikipedia's accuracy were a little misplaced, but think I will take a note from the editorial in Nature v.438 p. 890 December 15, 2005, Wiki's wild world (full text to subscribers only), and still read Wikipedia entries cautiously and amend them enthusiastically.
1 Comments:
While I'll admit, the Nature article is a real benefit to the impression and reputation of Wikipedia, I think your entry misses some subtle points: the Nature article doesn't say "Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica."
You do note that Wikipedia had a higher total of factual errors. However, "the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three." Furthermore, the scientists found the readability of Wikipedia lacking, citing articles' confusing structure.
On the other hand, there are some statistics done up by Wikipedians themselves.
There is a chart breaking down the errors per word in each article: over all, Wikipedia has less errors per word--all though, Wikipedia has on average more words be article, which is either a good thing, if they are written well, or bad, if the pages are repetitive and poorly written.
Anyway, I'll admit its coming along, but it has a lot of places for improvement, and a lot of gaps.
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