Skate of the web

Sometimes people object to using Wikipedia for academic purposes. I am not going to deal with the pros and cons of such use here (though I am convinced the pros far outnumber the cons). I am going to talk about a professor who took the bull by its horn and decided to build upon Wikipedia, with his students.

I am talking about wikipedia turbouser Jon Beasley-Murray, author, with his students, of the Wikipedia pages/articles El Señor Presidente on the book by Nobel Prize winner Miguel Angel Asturias, The General in his Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez, etc. So, he got to be a writer of great value for Wikipedia and the community at large.

Jon Beasley-Murray is Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. His profile can be found here: User:jbmurray – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jbmurray}. Here’s a nice quote:

In Spring 2008, I coordinated the educational project Murder, Madness, and Mayhem. In one semester we promoted three articles to Featured Article status, eight to Good Article status, and one to B-Class status. More details are available on our project page.

See also: “Was Introducing Wikipedia to the Classroom an Act of Madness Leading Only to Mayhem if not Murder?”

I am working on a further essay, “Advice on Using Wikipedia in Colleges and Universities“. Do tell me what you think.

The fact is that Jon’s  collective goals for his class were to bring a selection of articles on Latin American literature to featured article status (or as near as possible), but none of them had such status at the beginning.

This is what bavatuesday‘s Jim Groom (deus ex machina of UMW Blogs) has to say:

This is a remarkable project, and a herculean task realized in the short time span of less than 15 weeks. Jon and his students are [a] model for thinking, sharing and contributing with[in] the open space of the internet. An important act of faith and intellectual responsibility. It is ever so impressive.

Jon’s project lives –> here <– on Wikipedia. PLUS, check this –> Presentation <– by Brian Lamb on the use of Wikipedia in Academia.