This is a useful discussion. The point about information literacy is really very important. There's plenty of evidence to show that information literacy / critical thinking is not taught to a high enough standard. This is an incredibly important skill in the digital age. There is so much information out there that it can be overwhelming for people without those skills and very difficult to determine what can be trusted, what has credibility and what constitutes a reliable source. I recommend an excellent paper on the topic by Demos called "Truth, Lies and the Internet"<http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/truth-lies-and-the-internet> which can be downloaded for free.
Wikimedia UK has taken some tentative steps towards a collaboration on this topic with Demos and a group called Digital Disruption. It's very much a side project at the moment but the first need is for research to demonstrate a need for these skills to be taught more widely and more effectively. To this end, Demos are looking for funding for the research. Where WMUK will come in to this eventually is on helping to provide tools (perhaps based on Wikimedia projects) to teach young people (in particular) the skills which we are defining as digital fluency. There's not a great deal to report at the moment but you can find some very basic information on this on the WMUK wiki<http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMUK,_Digital_Disruption_and_Demos_event,_24_October_2012>- although it is not a core project by any means and is very much exploratory at this stage. Thanks, Stevie On 14 May 2013 13:00, Tom Morris <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tuesday, 14 May 2013 at 12:08, geni wrote: > > On 13 May 2013 14:39, Charles Matthews > > <[email protected](mailto: > [email protected])> wrote: > > > The point about not citing encyclopedias is really old hat. Once > you're in tertiary education you shouldn't cite tertiary sources? > > > > May not be addressed depending on the field. Back when I was doing my > degree they just insisted that you cite journals so the issue of primary > secondary and tertiary (and to be fair significant chunks of wikipedia are > secondary rather than tertiary) didn't arise. > > Part of the problem is that information literacy is really poorly taught > IMHO. > > It's often shuffled around universities: between academic staff, > librarians and learning support people, and nobody actually takes the time > to tell students what is and isn't acceptable. (And then those students > start editing Wikipedia…) > > I saw a first year student a while back who was citing a "crystal healing" > website to define key terms in moral philosophy for the essay they had to > do on computer ethics as part of a computer science degree at a top 10 UK > department for computing. Nobody had actually taught them at school or upon > getting to university that some sources were better than others, and that > you might actually have to go to the library and open a book rather than > just go to Google and find a source that says what you want it to say. > > I know that when I got to university, they offered those kinds of skills > as optional "study skills" modules, which lots of people just didn't bother > going to - because they naturally assumed from having passed their A-levels > with grades good enough to let them go to university that they didn't need > to learn any new study skills. Making basic information literacy and study > skills non-optional both at school and university would be good. > > It's not Wikipedia's job to make society actually teach information > literacy (although Wikimedians and WMUK might want to publicly advocate > it). That's the job of schools and universities. It'd be nice to know in a > non-anecdotal way whether they are actually trying to do this and how well > they are doing. > > -- > Tom Morris > <http://tommorris.org/> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org > -- Stevie Benton Communications Organiser Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173 @StevieBenton Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
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