Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia, Ponders a New Entity: Wikiversity

By ANDREA L. FOSTER

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. Information Technology
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, ponders a new entity: Wikiversity

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Fans of Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, have proposed the creation of Wikiversity, an electronic institution of learning that would be just as open.

It's not clear exactly how extensive Wikiversity would be. Some think it should serve only as a repository for educational materials; others think it should also play host to online courses; and still others want it to offer degrees.

On a Wikiversity Web site, Cormac Lawler, a doctoral candidate in education at the University of Manchester, in England, says the mission of Wikiversity is to use the open-source model -- based on software that anyone is free to modify -- to develop learning materials, teach, conduct research, and publish. Collaborative learning would be stressed, and students themselves could determine course content and activities. Mr. Lawler, who is a lead proponent of Wikiversity, says he wants the project to focus on original research.

The Wikiversity Web site says the proposed enterprise "could become much more than 'yet another university' -- it has the potential for rethinking the mode of education itself, or, at least, for furthering the model of collaborative education."

Wikipedia was started by Jimmy Wales, an Internet entrepreneur, in 2001 and now contains more than 2.5 million entries in 10 languages. The site receives about 2.5 billion hits a month, and has spawned Wikibooks, which offers free open-source textbooks, and Wiktionary, an open-source dictionary, among other creations.

In an online referendum of those involved in Wiki projects, the vote, which ended last month, was 199 to 86 in support of Wikiversity. But the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, which runs Wikipedia and oversees projects that use its software, is on the fence about Wikiversity. And some board members fear the project would be publicly derided.

There has been widespread grumbling about the accuracy of Wikipedia since John Seigenthaler Sr., a former editor of USA Today, publicly complained in that newspaper last month that he had been vilified in a Wikipedia entry. The entry, which has been changed, had falsely linked him to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (The Chronicle, Wired Campus Blog, December 14).

But John W. Schmidt, a neuroscientist who is a research manager at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, in Tempe, Ariz., says that Wikiversity might actually improve the credibility of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects by promoting a culture of scholarship, accuracy, and fact-checking.

"I think that could be an important role for Wikiversity," said Mr. Schmidt, "and I'm trying to push that position."

The Wikimedia board last month asked proponents to clarify the project. It decided that Wikiversity would not be a host for online courses or promote itself as a degree-granting institution. But many hope the board will eventually reconsider its decision about courses. In the meantime, about 15 people have already created online courses on the Wikibooks Web site.

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