Courtesy of the Chronicle of Higher Education, I found links to two articles in the Times of London. In the first article, Professor Tara Brarbazon describes the research policy for her first-year students: no Googling or Wikipedia. Students should consider the authority of the source material, instead of PageRank or convenience. In a response, Times columnist Magnus Linklater portrays Brabazon’s ban as a short-sighted elitist, while praising Wikipedia for its low error rate. Wikipedia has announced that it will conduct a survey of its users and editors, with the assistance of the United Nations University and Maastricht University.
Of course, balance is important, as I mentioned in my 15 January 2008 article about Wikipedia’s seventh anniversary. Wikipedia and Google are convenient starting points for research, but students need to develop their own search skills.
More library databases are available in surprising ways. This Chronicle article from 7 January 2008 discusses how university libraries are posting their own Facebook applications, to provide their students with easier access to reference materials.
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