Scholarpedia and Citizendium and more…
Thanks in part to Mr. Stephen Colbert, the ease with which Wikipedia articles are written/edited/vandalized has been widely scrutinized. While “truthiness” might work for you, it won’t work for your teachers. So you need an alternative, right?
Scholarpedia is an online encyclopedia that is written by experts. Not only do you know the name and credentials of the author responsible for the article, you also can rest assured that the article has been peer-reviewed. However, it is not a general encyclopedia. It only provides coverage of science-related topics and has a fraction of the articles available in Wikipedia.
And then there's Citizendium. Had you forgotten about Citizendium? Yeah, me too. Currently boasting 3,300 articles, Citizendium is Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger's response to the "populist" editorial process of Wikipedia. Like Scholarpedia, the author is identified in Citizendium and the articles are subject to a review process.
You could argue that many Wikipedia articles are also revised, edited, and reviewed by experts. Great. Just keep in mind that these are all encyclopedia articles! College-level research requires that you go beyond encyclopedia articles to analyze actual research and journal articles and books and statistics and primary documents and more.
1 comment:
Yes, there should be alternatives to Wikipedia. I have enjoyed the encyclopedia, and also life experience, as means to the end, the end defined as the point where I have surely, undoubtedly, and noticably learned something. Reality is also rewritable, just like Wikipedia, which makes it a good alternative.
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