| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/22/2008 8:58:49 AM | http://news.scotsman.com/education/Falling-exam--passes-blamed.4209408.jp
Published Date: 21 June 2008
By MARTYN McLAUGHLIN
WIKIPEDIA and other online research sources were yesterday blamed for Scotland's falling exam pass rates.
The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said pupils are turning to websites and internet resources that contain inaccurate or deliberately misleading information before passing it off as their own work.
The group singled out online encyclopediADVERTISEMENTa Wikipedia, which allows entries to be logged or updated by anyone and is not verified by researchers, as the main source of information.
Standard Grade pass rates were down for the first time in four years last year and the SPTC is now calling for pupils to be given lessons on using the internet appropriately for additional research purposes "before the problem gets out of hand".
Eleanor Coner, the SPTC's information officer, said: "Children are very IT-savvy, but they are rubbish at researching. The sad fact is most children these days use libraries for computers, not the books. We accept that as a sign of the times, but schools must teach pupils not to believe everything they read.
"It's dangerous when the internet is littered with opinion and inaccurate information which could be taken as fact.
"Internet plagiarism is a problem. Pupils think 'I'll nick that and nobody will notice', but the Scottish Qualifications Authority has robust ways of checking for plagiarism and parents are worried their children will fail their exams."
Ronnie Smith, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said there was a higher risk of inaccurate information on the internet than in books. He added: "We need to make sure youngsters don't take what they read online as fact."
Several further education institutions have already banned students from using the interactive encyclopaedia. At one college in Vermont in the US, a history professor found several students repeated the same error in exam papers. On discovering the information came from Wikipedia, the college outlawed its future use.
Ms Coner said overuse of the internet also meant students did not develop interpretative skills.
She said: "Pupils are in danger of believing what they read. It's part of our short-cut culture, where we will do anything to pass a test, without properly engaging with the information or questions that are being asked.
"It's all very well to glance at a website for research, but you have to check what you are reading is correct. Anything can be untrue. I can claim to be a world expert on anything if I set up a website on the internet."
Alan Johnson, the UK Education Secretary, was lambasted earlier this year for suggesting the website could be a positive educational tool for children.
He described the internet as "an incredible force for good in education", singling out Wikipedia for praise.
A disclaimer on Wikipedia states "it is important to note that fledgling, or less well monitored, articles may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information".
Boasting over two million articles, Wikipedia is used by about 6 per cent of internet users, significantly more than the traffic to more authorised sites, such as those of newspapers. Its articles are mainly edited by a team of volunteers.
'There is a great deal of misinformation on the net'
LAST week I heard the writer Colin Bateman describe how, on looking himself up on Wikipedia, he was dismayed to discover that his young son had gone online and added the sentence: "Mr Bateman is currently suffering from penile dysfunction." Fortunately his dad saw the funny side – and was proud his child could spell "dysfunction" correctly.
In common with students everywhere, I use Wikipedia as a research tool, and so does my son. Occasionally, I come across areas where there is academic dissent – for example on whether Homer was an individual poet, and this is usually clearly indicated.
There are subjects on which I wouldn't trust any open-edit web resource, because I've come across too many conspiracy theorists in my time. But generally I think the biggest risk of using any internet source is that it leads to plagiarism, intended or unintended.
It is so easy to cut and paste, meaning only to put together some useful notes, and then to draw on them too heavily without acknowledging the source. At the extreme it is all too easy to buy "off the peg" essays on any subject.
When I was studying public health, we were trained to test the reliability of health-related websites, because there is a great deal of subjective misinformation on the net which may appear reliable.
The great strength of the internet is that it means we can amass information very readily, but it is hard to distinguish between authoritative, scientifically tested information, and something more akin to rumour.
One topic in my son's Higher History course is the civil rights movement in the US. Starting from the simplest of internet queries, it wasn't long before he got into quite contentious issues, which were presented in very partial terms by organisations with vested interests.
It was hugely useful to him to develop the skill of challenging what was presented as "fact", but it is a skill that has to be learnt, and which many internet users won't have. Of course, that skill isn't just useful for assessing the reliability of the internet. Mr Bateman, for example, earns his living by making up stories.
• Miranda Harvey is a parent of a pupil at Boroughmuir High School, Edinburgh.
Politics
POLITICIANS and their parties are among those Wikipedia entries most vulnerable to deliberate misinformation.
During his time in Downing Street, Tony Blair may have been alarmed to find himself slurred as "George Bush's ****-boy".
The SNP's entry has previously seen the party described as one "influenced by childish Jacobitism", while Scottish Labour has been dubbed a "fascist organisation".
Celebrity
AS WELL as political heavy-hitters, the realm of celebrity is a favourite for Wikipedia's mischief-makers.
At different times, Kylie Minogue has had her genealogical history thrown into doubt after her entry claimed that she was "the more beautiful and talented older sister" of Michael Jackson.
Robbie Williams suffered an even crueller entry – it was at one point alleged on Wikipedia that he made a living from eating hamsters in pubs in and around Stoke.
Fantasists
WIKIPEDIA is seen by some as a blank canvas where self-publicists can promote themselves. In 2006, a call centre worker from Glasgow was exposed after concocting an elaborate alter ego through his Wikipedia page, which gave the impression he was a highly decorated war hero.
Alan Mcilwraith, renaming himself Captain Sir Alan, claimed to have been an officer in the Parachute Regiment, who finished top of his class at Sandhurst before going on to become a terrorism expert.
After two years of conducting this charade, someone who knew Mcilwraith revealed the sham. | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/22/2008 2:54:18 PM | | I make it perfectly clear that my students are not allowed to use online sources for assignments, unless they have been pre-approved by me. It's true that anyone can post anything, and I think people are often doing themselves a disservice by using these "resources". | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/22/2008 3:23:15 PM | I make it perfectly clear that my students are not allowed to use online sources for assignments, unless they have been pre-approved by me. It's true that anyone can post anything, and I think people are often doing themselves a disservice by using these "resources".
I agree, but let's keep in mind that anyone can write a book filled with opinion and pass it off as fact. | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/22/2008 9:13:54 PM | I have found wikipedia.org to be just as reliable as various "official" sources. In my dealings with the media, I've encountered so many people who seemed completely uninterested in the truth, who were driving at some agenda or predetermined conclusion. Likewise, I've encountered numerous judges, politicians, and even college professors who seemed to twist words around to arrive at some predetermined conclusion.
These people do everything they can to stifle debate, to talk over and shout down dissenters, even to ridicule those who question the inner workings of the system. People are able to upload files and info to wiki's that would be immediately filtered out by newspaper and magazine editors. Some people see bias at Fox News, but they ignore the bias at NBC (owned by GE), CBS (Westinghouse), or ABC (Disney-ABC Corp.). They imagine that other official sources are completely open and objective.
The swill merchants of the mainstream media and even many official books often have their own personal interests or the interests of advertisers and publishers in mind when they produce work. | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/22/2008 9:43:58 PM | Wikipedia is no more, nor no less, inaccurate than any other online resource. Sure, anyone can post any amount of (dis)information...but this open-source aspect also means that anyone else can quickly and easily post corrections and accurate information. The trick is to verify such information by referring to the provided sources. But this is S.O.P. when using any type of "encyclopedic" resource. In my own personal experience, I have found Wiki to be more accurate and dependable than the broadcast media, and most print media (attributed to the fact that the latter have less time to "get it right.") Face it, during the Gulf War in 1991, when an on-the-scene CNN reporter commented about F-117s "kicking in their afterburners" and when video footage reportedly showing an Iraqi column was actually a Syrian column...it was at that point impossible to ever take that network seriously again. And when an ABC reporter stated that the U.S. *HOUSE* had passed a piece of legislation by a vote of 64-to-36...ditto! (And we shall not mention the CNBC reporter who stated that the election of 2000 was the *first* time in history where the candidate who did not receive the more popular votes won the presidency...lol. Even ol' Wiki accurately provides the details on the previous times this has happened.)
And, to back up what others have opined: any student who uses *any* type of encyclopedia as their *primary* source(s) - deserves to fail, and with embarassing humiliation. | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/22/2008 10:03:26 PM | " Wikipedia is no more, nor no less, inaccurate than any other online resource. "
And....no more, nor no less, inaccurate than any other book....!!!! The truth has been removed from historical books LONG ago...
EVERY SOURCE OF INFORMATION.....Is just another opinion, just another idea, just another fabrication, just another skewed truth .........It's ALL.... been washed down over and over again.
Sooooo.....Maybe it's time we change the way we teach our children................Ya right..!!!
The reality is........The World does not want to know the truth ........Ignorance is bliss......
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/23/2008 7:21:51 AM | Wikipedia is a great starting point for research, but not a good end point. If I need to quickly find out something - ie. mathematical concepts, the first resource I'll turn to is Wikipedia. If I need to find out anything about a popular person in modern culture, the first place I'll turn to is Wikipedia. I think people greatly overestimate the amount of disinformation that goes on there. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource.
But like I said, Wikipedia is not a good end-point for research, because at the end of the day it is not a primary document. It is an interpretation of primary documents, if even that. For fielding most random questions that I have, that is satisfactory. For more in-depth work, I will then turn to the likes of SCOPUS and other journal databases. | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/23/2008 10:41:14 AM | Hmmm....seems pretty much covered by Wikipedia's disclaimer...
WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY
Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups working to develop a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection to alter its content. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.
That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields.
Not that anyone reads those types of things. | |
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| Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Posted: 6/23/2008 11:20:49 AM | I've found Wiki to be a good base point of reference, along with other research. Alone, I wouldn't trust any source individually. The key is to assemble your information from various sources, anyway.
I think Wiki actually stands up pretty well, most times. It's the ultimate embodiment of democracy, of people working together to enter and verify information for all to access freely.
As for quoting someone else while trying to make people think it's your work ? That's a no no . | |
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