Jesse Vorst wrote:  
> Sumitra refers to Wikipedia. Social scientists should be aware of the   
> "openness" of this so-called encyclopedia. I keep finding  factual   
> errors and editorialised histories in my students' papers for which   
> they gave W. as the source. My latest course outline requires   
> corroborating evidence to accompany references to Wikipedia entries.  
> The widespread lack of W's reliability was, again, illustrated a few   
> days ago when U.S. Congressional staff was found to have changed   
> biographies of  their political masters. Disinformation for the   
> masses (or whatever Orwell called it)?  
  
  
Disinformation? What about some facts:  
  
News item:  
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm  
<<  
[...]  
In order to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of  
scientific entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia  
Britannica.  
  
The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about  
the source of the information.  
[...]  
>>  
  
Source data:  
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html  
  
Wikipedia (dis)information about above data:  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review/Nature_December_2005  
  
If teachers didn't teach students to check multiple source in the paper  
world, the move to the digital world is indeed an excellent occasion to  
move from bad to good teaching :).  
  
There are many good questions raised about source, trust and authorship  
of information by the emergence of wikipedia and of the online world, I  
hope teachers and historians are agitating them before their students as  
food for thought.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Laurent Guerby