There is an interesting article from a recent issue of Inside Higher Ed reporting on a paper at the Educause conference in the US. Martha Groom tells how she had her students submit their term paper to Wikipedia as an article. This allowed them to immediately engage with the idea of peer review, give consideration to copyright and references, think about the tone of the article and so on.
Another very good reason for this kind of exercise is that it allows students to understand what type of resource they are getting with Wikipedia. They’d be able to see that Wikipedia is open to all to contribute; that has a transparent editing and discussion process; and most importantly, it would emphasise the need to assess whether the information is credible or not.
