Doubting the wisdom of Wiki

"If Wikipedia says it, it must be true."

So claims the title of a group with more than 44,000 members on facebook.com. Though the group's name is facetious, its sentiment seems to go unquestioned for some students, who increasingly rely on Wikipedia for academic research.

Earlier this month, Middlebury College's history department announced a new policy which states that "Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation."

"Students are responsible for the accuracy of information they provide," the Middlebury policy reads. It also states that Wikipedia "suffers inevitably from inaccuracies." Since any viewer can edit the website's entries, it is easy for users to post misinformation, sometimes deliberately.

Middlebury history professor Neil Waters urged the department to adopt the policy after he found what he described as "little nuggets of misinformation ... reappearing in similar language again and again" in his students' Japanese history exams last semester.

After he identified Wikipedia as the source of the misinformation, Waters wrote a policy banning Wikipedia citations but recognizing their usefulness "for some general purposes."

The policy was adopted unanimously by faculty members in Middlebury's history department.

The policy has received widespread news coverage, with articles appearing in The New York Times and many campus newspapers.

While Waters originally thought the new policy might be "belaboring the obvious," he said he took the story's popularity as a sign that other institutions are facing similar problems with unreliable online sources like Wikipedia.

"Academics in particular are going to be confronting this," Waters said of the rise of extremely convenient but potentially inaccurate information available online.

Though Princeton professors have yet to introduce a policy similar to the one at Middlebury, many said they caution students against using Wikipedia for more than basic references.

"Why should [Wikipedia] be treated differently than other encyclopedias?" history professor Susan Naquin asked in an email. She pointed out that Wikipedia can be a useful starting point and sometimes directs users to primary or secondary sources.

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"Of course, any research work will have to be based on other materials," Naquin said.

Wikipedia representatives agreed that the website's entries should serve only as a starting point for research. "We are not an authoritative source," Wikipedia communications manager Sandra Ordonez said in an interview. "Consequently, students should not be citing us."

Ordonez said Wikipedia can give users a helpful "global picture" of a topic, but she emphasized the importance of double-checking information with other sources.

University computer science professor Ed Felten said he shares Ordonez's view on the value of Wikipedia, adding that he personally consults the site for some academic purposes. At times, he has referred students to Wikipedia entries when he has "read them and verified that they're good," he said in an email.

"This is often much faster than trying to write a summary myself," Felten said.

Waters said he consults Wikipedia entries at times, too. "I have occasionally looked at [entries] because you can hardly avoid it," he said, noting that Google frequently turns up Wikipedia sites at the top of its search results.

"But I haven't relied on it," he added, citing the inconsistent quality of articles as a major concern.

Despite its inconsistencies, some professors believe a faculty response to Wikipedia usage is unnecessary, seeing the issue as one of student responsibility.

"We should expect students to choose their sources wisely," Felten said, "and we should grade their work accordingly."