Stumbled on this essay defending the use of Wikipedia in academia today, and was pleased and excited to see that it was written by a Duke prof, Cathy Davidson (blog). I knew Duke was doing the right thing in starting a center for interdisciplinary studies, and I’m excited to see that Prof. Davidson (current head of that project) is also interested in the future of educational technology. Great to see that the alma mater is hiring and recognizing people who are forward-thinking.
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Thanks for the link, I already send it to everybody at our department here. It is good to see that even the humanities, where people in general tend to be more conservative about certain academic traditions, can take a constructive approach towards the digital and social phenomena that have emerged over the last years.
The essay doesn’t touch the critical issue at all. All he does is dancing around the coolness factors. What he fails to do is to address the vast quality problems the Wikipedia has. I wouldn’t really use that essay for anything more important besides as using it as toilet paper.