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I found the post by John Timmer on ars tecnica regarding one professorâ??s use of Wikipedia entries in the place of a term paper quite fascinating. While I agree with a number of points made by my colleague Marissa in her post, I have a slightly different perspective on it.

When I was an undergraduate, I intended to complete a PhD in microbiology and enter the world of academia. Even though I ultimately dropped out of my PhD program to pursue an MBA instead, I had enough exposure to develop a profound, first-hand appreciation of the rigors of the peer review process.

Nothing in my undergraduate experience really prepared me for the debate, criticism, and justification the peer review process entails. Sure, professors make critical observations and suggestions about any work product that you turn in, but ultimately it is just one person evaluating your work, and that one person has dozens (or more) of other peopleâ??s work to review as well. The breadth and depth of their analysis is significantly lower than what one can expect from academic peer review.

Timmerâ??s post mentions that many of the studentsâ?? works were ultimately removed, significantly edited, or incorporated into other entries after a lengthy discussion process amongst Wikipedia contributors. While admittedly, the Wikipedia process is not controlled solely by well-respected academics and I am sure that the commentary may stray towards unfettered attacks rather than constructive criticism, the process remains roughly analogous to that of peer review.

Even though Wikipedia cannot be considered as a reliable source of information from an academic perspective, it seems to me that it could provide an interesting means of introducing students to the wonderful world of peer review. For those interested in pursuing a career in academics, it could be a valuable means of testing oneâ??s ability to defend a position, expand upon a thesis, and develop the tough skin required to accept criticism and use it to build a more solid foundation for an argument.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 11:11 am and is filed under User Generated Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.