This week, we have been playing with these Web 2.o tools by creating our profiles and adding content to them. It's been an interesting experience.
Why interesting? Like many schools, our school regularly tells students not to use these resources as viable sources in their coursework. They are consider secondary sources of information. This is because you cannot link specific information on the page to a specific author and validate their credibility.
After our work this week of changing/adding entries, my viewpoint of the sites have changed slightly. Honestly, I never noticed the "History" tab in these sources to see the editing trail. You can see who exactly is editing the page.
But my view of student's using it as a credible source has not changed. Why? Because many of the authors do not elaborate about their credibility in their profiles. As part of our assignment, we had to update our profile, but an updated profile for every author seems rare. I do recommend to students that they use these tools as a launching point in their research. Let these tools give you some ideas. If you like what is stated, try to find that information in our library's databases from a clearly stated author.
I do enjoy the ease of these tools, how far they have come in a long time and their promising future. I am curious about how these tools will evolve as new technologies are created.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Here's an interesting issue Amy-
ReplyDeleteWe were having an NCCIA meeting, and so i decided we needed a wikipedia entry. After several attempts at creating an article, and including a bunch of information, i gave up- someone kept deleting the entry and saying it was not documented properly. We've been around for over 12 years, and involved thousands of people, yet have very little "referenceable" items. There are no ISBN's, or card catalogs, or things in concrete- it's all been digital- emails, pdf's, websites, and kinko's printed brochures.
If I print a book at lulu.com or pay to have some othe publisher do it, and get an ISBN, then it can use it- but if not i can't... so as we move towards ebooks, self publishing, etc... where do you draw the line? Many sustainability folks have done experiments and then published their work on their own websites, and often even documented it on youtube- but these sources are still not really accepted in the same way traditional print is- yet they cover more information, are more relevant and up-to-date, and ultimately more useful (which is why we all use them all the time) than what's "academically rigourous."
Certainly no easy way thru this...
d.i.