[Air-l] community built online encyclopedia

Bunz, Ulla K ulla at ukans.edu
Tue Oct 23 12:47:45 PDT 2001


One of the assignments in my senior level "Communication and New
Technologies" class is a group project called Tech Update. Students love it,
and sometimes you get real jewels. In small groups, students are required to
find new technologies or new applications of existing technologies and
report on (positive and negative) effects these technologies have on society
in general, and our lives in specific.

I'd like to share today's Tech Update topic with you, because I think it is
very related to some of the discussions we've had on this list, such as the
community built listserve database we are currently considering.

Today's Tech Update will be about Wikipedia [http://wikipedia.com/], an
online, community built encyclopedia.  It exists in multiple languages
(though the English site is largest). EVERYONE can edit EVERY PAGE of this
online encyclopedia. The site/database is backed up once a week. Obviously,
this creates many issues, such as credibility of information, active history
shaping, etc., but what an excellent example of community built cyber
culture! What a very exciting discussion topic, and what a wonderful case
study this would make.

ulla

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Ulla K. Bunz
Ph.D. Candidate, Teaching Assistant
University of Kansas
102 Bailey
Lawrence, KS 66045
785-864-1160
ulla at ukans.edu
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Never Surrender ...
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