"Students are told not to use Wikipedia for research. But it’s a trustworthy source"

[Poetlister]

At the start of each university year, we ask first-year students a question: how many have been told by their secondary teachers not to use Wikipedia? Without fail, nearly every hand shoots up. Wikipedia offers free and reliable information instantly. So why do teachers almost universally distrust it?

Wikipedia has community-enforced policies on neutrality, reliability and notability. This means all information “must be presented accurately and without bias”; sources must come from a third party; and a Wikipedia article is notable and should be created if there has been “third-party coverage of the topic in reliable sources”.

Wikipedia is free, non-profit, and has been operating for over two decades, making it an internet success story. At a time when it’s increasingly difficult to separate truth from falsehood, Wikipedia is an accessible tool for fact-checking and fighting misinformation.

zmescience.com

[Midsize Jake]

zmescience.com

Well, I don't mean to do the whole guilt-by-association thing, but this article originally came from The Conversation and was written by two University of Canberra faculty members, Rachel Cunneen and Mathieu O'Neil (T-C-L) — and as you all know, the University of Canberra is where Laura Hale got her Ph.D., had her Wikipedian-in-Residence gig, and wrote all those Australian Paralympics articles on Wikipedia. So they're probably getting a fair amount of institutional support for this sort of article.

This also appears to be the first and only non-academic publication for both of them, so between them they don't have much of a public reputation for critical analysis of social media or modern media in general.

[Moral Hazard]

The University of Canberra has 24 postgraduate students in its school of Science, making it smaller than many groups in Biology (led by one professor).

It does not have departments of mathematics, philosophy, computer science, or Biology.

Maybe it is a university specializing in special-education students or lazy students from rich families?

[Midsize Jake]

Maybe it is a university specializing in special-education students or lazy students from rich families?

Could be...? I don't mean to needlessly cast aspersions, but the UoC ranks only 27th (out of 39) in the current US News.com global university rankings for Australia alone, and for the entire globe it's down there at #548. Not the worst in Australia (or the world), but... not great.

Obviously that ranking comes from an American source and Aussies should feel free to dismiss it, if for only that reason. But it's probably safe to say that it's not "highly regarded," domestically or otherwise. And y'know, their seemingly-fawning attitude towards Wikipedia might just have something to do with it.

[Poetlister]

The University of Canberra has 24 postgraduate students in its school of Science, making it smaller than many groups in Biology (led by one professor).

It does not have departments of mathematics, philosophy, computer science, or Biology.

Maybe it is a university specializing in special-education students or lazy students from rich families?

Some quite reputable universities focus on a narrow range of subjects. The London School of Economics is a world leader in economics. It does teach other subjects, and is quite good for statistics for example, but it lacks many departments that you might expect in a general purpose university.

[Hemiauchenia]

Wikipedia is a good place to find reliable sources in the form of References, but isn't a reliable source in and of itself.

[greyed.out.fields]

Maybe it is a university specializing in special-education students or lazy students from rich families?

Could be...? I don't mean to needlessly cast aspersions, but the UoC ranks only 27th (out of 39) in the current US News.com global university rankings for Australia alone, and for the entire globe it's down there at #548. Not the worst in Australia (or the world), but... not great.

Obviously that ranking comes from an American source and Aussies should feel free to dismiss it, if for only that reason. But it's probably safe to say that it's not "highly regarded," domestically or otherwise. And y'know, their seemingly-fawning attitude towards Wikipedia might just have something to do with it.

OK, let's put it this way. The overwhelming majority of Australian High Court justices were undergraduates at the top three on that list. Of course those institutions are much older than the ones further down, but...

So, when will there be High Court justice that took their LLB at the University of Canberra?

That's pretty easy to predict: never. It's not that kind of place.

[ArmasRebane]

I've never gotten why teachers say "don't use Wikipedia" instead of "use Wikipedia as a starting point to find sources" and the like. You might as well try behavior modification rather than behavior prohibition, especially since students entering higher schooling these days have literally grown up with Wikipedia always being there, and probably do generally trust it a bit more than whatever else randomly comes out of a search engine (and let's face it, social media is a much, much worse place to go.)

[DanMurphy]

Because using wikipedia as a starting point is also stupid. The sources in the vast majority of articles, at best, fall well short of an academic bibliography. They're assembled based on being easy to find on google, for supporting particular and often fringe views (or the need to refute those views with some other opinion), and in many instances overwhelmingly from daily journalism.

The starting place for resources to research academic topics should be a good library.

[Vigilant]

Because using wikipedia as a starting point is also stupid. The sources in the vast majority of articles, at best, fall well short of an academic bibliography. They're assembled based on being easy to find on google, for supporting particular and often fringe views (or the need to refute those views with some other opinion), and in many instances overwhelmingly from daily journalism.

The starting place for resources to research academic topics should be a good library.

Fossilized confirmation bias.

[Beeblebrox]

When I was in school we were told pretty much the same thing about paper encyclopedias. Good place to start if you know nothing about the topic, but absolutely not to be cited as a source in your paper.

[el84]

Because using wikipedia as a starting point is also stupid. The sources in the vast majority of articles, at best, fall well short of an academic bibliography. They're assembled based on being easy to find on google, for supporting particular and often fringe views (or the need to refute those views with some other opinion), and in many instances overwhelmingly from daily journalism.

The starting place for resources to research academic topics should be a good library.

I think I'm glad that I was at university when wikipedia wasn't really a thing yet (early 2000s). Instead, I got to do my research at the LLGC which had a crapload of stuff available, being a deposit library.

[lonza leggiera]

Maybe it is a university specializing in special-education students or lazy students from rich families?

Could be...? I don't mean to needlessly cast aspersions, but the UoC ranks only 27th (out of 39) in the current US News.com global university rankings for Australia alone, and for the entire globe it's down there at #548. Not the worst in Australia (or the world), but... not great.

Obviously that ranking comes from an American source and Aussies should feel free to dismiss it, if for only that reason. But it's probably safe to say that it's not "highly regarded," domestically or otherwise. And y'know, their seemingly-fawning attitude towards Wikipedia might just have something to do with it.

OK, let's put it this way. The overwhelming majority of Australian High Court justices were undergraduates at the top three on that list. Of course those institutions are much older than the ones further down, but...

Not quite right. The order of establishment was: University of Sydney (1850), University of Melbourne (1853), University of Adelaide (1874), University of Tasmania (1890), University of Queensland (1909). There are also some current universities (such as RMIT University) which were founded in the 19th or early 20th century as non-university tertiary institutions, but were converted to "universities" after the "Dawkins reform" of the late 1980s.