Wikimedia &

Information Literacy:

the importance of

reliable sources

Digital & Information Literacy Forum

Friday 17th November

Sara Thomas, Wikimedian in Residence, SLIC

@lirazelf

“Wikipedia is the single greatest Open

Education resource the world has ever seen”

Jim Groom, Instructional technologist, speaking at #OER16

Wikipedia is more

accurate than you

think

● Quality & ratings scale

● Vandalism picked up quickly

● Neutral point of view

● Study by Nature in 2005,

found Wiki nearly as

accurate as Britannica (2.92

errors per article comp to

3.86 on Wikipedia.)

● Journal of Clinical Oncology,

2010 found Wiki as accurate

as Physician Data Query.

NotabilityGeneral notability guideline:

If a topic has received

significant coverage in reliable

sources that are independent

of the subject, it is presumed

to be suitable for a stand-

alone article or list.

Verifiability

Other people using the

encyclopedia must be able to

check that the information

comes from a reliable source

Identifying reliable sources

Articles should be based on reliable,

third party published sources with a

reputation for fact-checking and

accuracy.

Mail piece published 4th March 2017...

Guardian piece published 8th February 2017...

Obvious manipulation is obvious

Wikipedia gets it...

https://wikiedu.org/

Down with this sort of thing*

*poorly taught information literacy

Using Wikipedia in the classroom

Student reflections

Students respond well to this sharing of open knowledge in a real world application of teaching and learning.

Aine Kavanagh’s article on High Grade Serous carcinoma has been viewed 20,000 times in a year...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQR_1mZ-gAA

Thanks!

Sara Thomas

@lirazelf

s.thomas@scottishlibraries.org