An updated version of an electronic-literature compendium is out, with the goal of creating a more interactive community.

Since 1998 the Electronic Literature Directory has compiled lists of works that are digitally born: for example, electronic poetry, or a text or even a game with a multimedia element. Electronic literature, or hypertext fiction, came to national attention in the 1990s; some called it revolutionary, others merely a passing trend.

The directory, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, now uses a wiki platform that allows the archive to include tags, descriptions, and discussions. Organizers hope to create a sort of “living archive,” which, like Wikipedia, is a communal effort. They also hope that the improvements will draw more readers and writers.

The directory has also added an editorial working group and an editorial board that curates...

If every episode of every television show deserves to be on Wikipedia, so does every piece of public art. Or at least Jennifer Geigel Mikulay thinks so, which is why she helped start a project to promote the documentation of public art around the world on Wikipedia.

Ms. Mikulay, an assistant professor and public scholar of visual culture at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, started the project, Wikipedia Saves Public Art, with Richard McCoy, an assistant conservator of objects and variable art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Ms. Mikulay and Mr. McCoy taught a course together last fall at Indiana-Purdue, in which they asked students to write Wikipedia articles about pieces of public art on the campus. They used a GPS to obtain coordinates for each piece, and they wrote an entry about each one, giving its art-history context.

The 40 articles produced by the class are...

Wikipedia is advocating for users to add videos to its online encyclopedia, which could give academics a new forum in which to share their multimedia work.

Three nonprofit groups -- Miro, Mozilla Drumbeat, and the Open Video Alliance -- began a campaign this month with support from the Wikimedia Foundation encouraging users to upload videos onto the Web site. Wikipedia asks that videos be short, under 100MB, and comply with the encyclopedia's rules.

Ben Moskowitz, general director of the Open Video Alliance, said he had talked with a number of universities interested in adding their content to the Web site or participating in data mobbing -- using small groups to reach a measured goal such as improving a specific area of Wikipedia. He declined to give names, saying talks are still preliminary.

Mr. Moskowitz said institutions could also see the videos as a beneficial way to teach...

Students have long turned to Wikipedia for answers -- often to the frustration of professors, who complain that the user-written encylopedia is not always accurate. But students at McGill University have taken their love of the free resource guide to a new level by starting a Wikipedia club on the campus.

The university's student government granted interim status to Students Supporting Wikipedia last month, making it a bona fide student organization. It might be the first officially sanctioned Wikipedia club on a college campus.

"I wasn't surprised when the group applied, because Wikipedia is so often used by students now that it wouldn't be long before students somewhere rallied round to show support," said Sarah Olle, the Students' Society vice president responsible for clubs.

The main purpose of Students Supporting Wikipedia is to raise money and contribute information to the...

By now, if you’re even moderately interested in Wikipedia, you’ve probably had the chance to read any number of lengthy articles on the Web site’s meteoric rise. So why bother with a whole book on the topic? In the case of Andrew Lih’s new tome, The Wikipedia Revolution, the answer is simple: The author is a longtime site administrator, and he has enough pull in the community to get Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder, to write a foreword. So, for all intents and purposes, this is Wikipedia: The Authorized Biography.

Let’s get this out of the way now: The Wikipedia Revolution (subtitled How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia) paints a reasonably rosy view of the open-source encyclopedia. In Mr. Lih’s telling, Wikipedia’s neutral-point-of-view policy “has worked remarkably well,” its “clinical, just-the-facts style” is “endearing,” and the site itself is “a...

Technology is changing the way students learn. Is it changing the way colleges teach?

Not enough, says George Siemens, associate director of research and development at the University of Manitoba’s Learning Technologies Centre.

While colleges and universities have been “fairly aggressive” in adapting their curricula to the changing world, Mr. Siemens told The Chronicle, “What we haven’t done very well in the last few decades is altering our pedagogy.”

To help get colleges thinking about how they might adapt their teaching styles to the new ways students absorb and process information, Mr. Siemens and Peter Tittenberger, director of the center, have created a Web-based guide, called the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning.

Taking their own advice, they have outfitted the handbook with a wiki function that will allow readers to contribute their own additions.

I...

Medpedia, a new online medical encyclopedia relying on user-generated content from anyone with an M.D. or a Ph.D. in a biomedical field, officially became available today. The venture, which has the backing of numerous leading medical schools, was explored in an earlier Chronicle article that takes a detailed look at issues for contributors and users of the site. —David Shieh

Educause, the higher-education technology group, has released its list of top teaching and learning challenges of 2009.

The top five challenges were selected by a combination of focus groups, surveys of interested professionals, face-to-face brainstorming, and a final vote. The challenges are:

1. Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation. 2. Developing 21st-century literacies — information, digital, and visual — among students and faculty members. 3. Reaching and engaging today’s learners. 4. Encouraging faculty members to adopt, and innovate with, new technology for teaching and learning. 5. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning with technology in an era of budget cuts.

Educause officials say they will now begin soliciting a volunteers to collaborate on solutions for each challenge...

A mobile computer that reads wireless transmitters, allowing blind people to navigate a city, could serve seeing pedestrians as well, students at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor say.

The students have developed Talking Points, an urban-orientation system, to give users context about their surroundings.

“If it caught on, this would be an effective way to tag the whole world,” Jason Stewart, a master’s student at Ann Arbor, said in a written statement. “Anyone with a reader could use it to find out more information about where they are.”

The system’s mobile computers, about the size of paperback books, read Bluetooth tags — on city landmarks and other points of interest — and convey information visually or aloud. Members of the Talking Points community can edit that information, which is stored in an online database.

The project is similar to others — including on...

With the backing of some top medical schools, a foundation is calling on physicians and scientists to help them build a huge online encyclopedia of medicine, called Medpedia. Today the Medpedia Foundation raised the curtain slightly on their Web site, giving prospective collaborators a peek.

The effort is supported by Harvard Medical School, the Stanford School of Medicine, the University of Michigan Medical School, the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health, and several health organizations.

The goal is to have, by the end of 2008, a site that covers more than 30,000 medical diseases and conditions and 10,000 drugs, as well as medical procedures and facilities throughout the world. Articles will be contributed and edited by online collaborators, like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Unlike that effort, which allows everyone to contribute, Medpedia is only...