Some professors doubt credibility of site

With more than 1.3 million articles and counting, Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, provides a wealth of information. But because that information can be changed at anytime by anyone, many faculty members believe it has no place in the classroom.\nIn a July episode of the satirical news show "The Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert showed viewers just how easy it is to manipulate Wikipedia entries when he changed the article on African elephants to say their numbers had tripled in the past six months and urged viewers to do so as well.\nIn the segment, Colbert coined the term "wikiality," or reality decided by democratic vote.\n"Together we can create a reality that we can all agree on -- the reality we just agreed on," Colbert said in the segment.\nSince the show aired, new or unregistered users have not been allowed to edit Wikipedia's elephant page.\n"I would not allow Wikipedia to be (cited in a paper), as it has been tainted," clinical assistant professor of optometry Dr. Susan Kovacich said in an e-mail. "Unless, of course, all the tainted info comes from Stephen Colbert."\nIn an unscientific survey of 222 IU faculty members conducted by the Indiana Daily Student, 44 percent of faculty members said that even if they have issues with the Web site, they at least allow students to cite Wikipedia articles in work they turn in, compared to 35 percent who expressly disallow it.\nAn additional 5 percent said whether they allowed students to cite Wikipedia depended on the assignment or class level the professors were teaching. Finally, 16 percent of those responding to the survey said they either did not have a classroom policy on Wikipedia or it did not apply to what they taught.\nSeveral faculty members referenced the Colbert episode and "wikiality" when replying to the survey.\nAssociate professor of informatics L. Jean Camp allows students to cite Wikipedia in papers but will take off points for it.\n"Wikipedia does have weaknesses, particularly on contested topics," Camp said in an e-mail. "Imagine doing research on the decline of elephants since the 'Colbert Report' Wikipedia episode! \n"On a more serious note, the neutrality and viewpoint of some articles varies day to day. It is a fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Whether or not one reads this in the Wikipedia entry on the current conflagration depends on the day you read it." \nStill, Camp said Wikipedia is not the worst citation she has ever seen in a paper.\n"The worst reference I have ever seen consisted entirely of a domain name: CNN.com," she said. "There was no title, no date, nothing except a pointer to an entire cable network's Web site."\nEven professors who didn't mention Colbert often mentioned the concept behind "wikiality" as one of the reasons they distrusted Wikipedia.\n"The idea that just anybody can write on a subject really flies in the face of what a university is all about -- expertise," Italian professor Peter Bondanella said in an e-mail. "Expertise is not a democratic quality."\nOther faculty members expressed displeasure with online information sources in general.\n"I do not allow students to cite any online source that is not peer-reviewed to assure quality of the information," assistant professor of anthropology Frederika Kaestle said in an e-mail. "I also do not allow the use of online sources that are highly ephemeral, as that defeats the purpose of citations."\nOther professors were wary of Wikipedia because it lacks the same peer-reviewing procedures as academic journals.\n"Good sources need good gatekeepers, peer review, editors and fact checkers," history professor David Ransel said in an e-mail. "I wrote a book many years ago about a major Russian political figure. The Wikipedia article on this person says that he died in Italy. The person in question not only did not die in Italy -- he died in St. Petersburg -- but he had never set foot in Italy!" \nStill more faculty members said they did not accept Wikipedia citations because they did not consider any encyclopedia an acceptable source.\n"The real issue is that encyclopedias of any kind are not the proper source for papers at the university level," assistant professor of political science Brian Rathbun said in an e-mail. "The point is to dig deeper. Wikipedia is a starting point for further research at best." \nSeeing an increase in the number of Wikipedia citations in student papers, Alan Liu, an English professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has developed a policy for appropriate use of Wikipedia as a source.\n"(A) Wikipedia citation can be an appropriate convenience when the point being supported is minor, noncontroversial or also supported by other evidence," according to Liu's policy. "In addition, Wikipedia is an appropriate source for some extremely recent topics (especially in popular culture or technology) for which it provides the sole or best available synthetic, analytical or historical discussion"