Students ‘should use Wikipedia’

From BBC News:

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said teachers who refuse students access to the site are “bad educators”.

Speaking at the Online Information conference at London’s Olympia, he dismissed the long-running controversy over the site’s authority.

He said he now thinks that students should be able to cite the online encyclopaedia in their work.

Previously, Mr Wales believed that the website, which is edited by users, lacked the authority for academic work.

As long as an article included accurate citations, he said he had “no problem” with it being used as a reference for students, although academics would “probably be better off doing their own research”.

“You can ban kids from listening to rock ‘n’ roll music, but they’re going to anyway,” he added. “It’s the same with information, and it’s a bad educator that bans their students from reading Wikipedia.”

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