September 21, 2006
Michael Brindley, education reporter

Type Nashua High School South into Wikipedia and within a few seconds, you’ll have access to a plethora of information about the school. But is all of it accurate?

The site documents the school’s transition from the old Spring Street location all the way to its recent split, which all appears to be correct.

But get to the bottom, and you’ll see Jean-Paul Levesque, also known as wrestler Triple H, listed as the school’s lone notable graduate. However, when you go to his Wikipedia entry, it says his real name is Paul Levesque.

It turns out the latter is Levesque’s actual name, but who wrote the school’s entry? Who thinks so highly of Triple H to include him in the school’s Wikipedia article? It could be anyone.

With a few keystrokes, information about anything and everything is at your fingertips with Wikipedia, the self-proclaimed “free online encyclopedia.” It’s easy to use and, at times, amazingly up-to-date, but because of its open nature, it has some credibility issues when it comes to use in the classrooms.

With the site’s growing popularity among high school and college students, educators are having to learn about the site themselves and determine where it fits in schools, if it fits at all.

“It’s a place to start and get keywords and information to know where to go next to get more authoritative sources,” said Sharon Flesher, a library media specialist at Nashua High School South. “But it shouldn’t be used as a source.”

Flesher hands a Web site evaluation sheet out to students when doing research on the Internet. With questions like “Is the information accurate?” and “Is it easy to identify the author of the site?” Flesher said she tries to instill some critical evaluation when using sites.

In the case of Wikipedia, established in 2001 and now with more than 5 million articles, there are questions when it comes to accuracy. Some articles appear to be generally accurate, but others have blatantly wrong information, said Flesher.

“I looked up a friend of mine’s biography,” said Flesher. “It was riddled with errors.”

Identifying the author becomes tricky and usually impossible, considering that anyone can submit entries to Wikipedia. The encyclopedia is a “wiki,” or a site where anyone can edit content and there are editors responsible for accuracy.

The site’s own Wikipedia entry provides a history of the site and acknowledges the system is not perfect. The entries are based on the theory that “collaboration among users will improve articles over time.”

However, “information is sometimes unconfirmed and questionable, lacking proper sources that could legitimize articles.”

Some entries haven’t even been reviewed at all. The entry for Bishop Guertin High School is labeled as a “stub” entry. What does that mean? According to Wikipedia, it means that it could have been written by anyone and has not yet been checked by any editors.

College professors and high school librarians, for the most part, say Wikipedia is not reliable enough to use as a credible source in any kind of paper students intend on handing in.

“I tell my students that there’s no way on Earth I’d cite that in one of my articles I’m trying to publish,” said Alexandria Peary, an associate professor of English at Daniel Webster College in Nashua. “It’s just not credible.”

In 2004, Peary, along with college librarian Linda Ernick, published an article in College & Undergraduate Libraries outlining the college’s new way of educating freshmen on library and Internet research.

The college altered its English 102 course to focus specifically on research, including discussions on the Internet and how to use it. Freshmen spend the semester learning how to use the library, but they also learn about questionable online resources such as Wikipedia.

Programs such as LexisNexis, an archive of newspaper and magazine articles, are good tools for students to get a handle on, she said.

Students doing research at the college’s library said that they’ve used Wikipedia, but because they don’t know away from relying solely on it.

Sophomore Rory Lekites, a sports management major, used Wikipedia for the first time just the other day. Sophomore Justin Bauman, at the next computer over, said he’s skimmed through some of the entries.

“It’s a good starting point,” said Lekites, “but it is limited.”

Bauman said he is more inclined to use books as resources for research papers, instead of Wikipedia or printed encyclopedias.

Senior Adam Dryz said there are some courses he’s taken where Wikipedia is strictly forbidden as a source. Dryz said he also questions the site’s credibility.

“It lends itself to mistakes” by trying to keep everything so up to date, said Dryz.

Peary said the recent exposure of politicians altering one another’s Wikipedia entries is a prime example of what makes it so flawed. Peary said the course at the school helps students understand the Internet and not fear it.

“We make research the focus of the course,” she said. “Instead of having a teacher say, ‘Hey, the Internet’s not cool,’ they actually evaluate it and learn about it.”

Flesher said that when working with the high school students, she does not want to scare them off from the Internet. Web sites like the World Health Organization, the CIA and the Library of Congress are all “high quality links,” she said.

“There’s so much out there that’s so good,” she said.

And not everyone feels that Wikipedia should be completely written off as a collection of unreliable articles from questionable sources. There is a belief in education that the Internet can a tool used to improve learning, but that continues to be a work in progress, especially with plagiarism becoming more of a problem.

Al DeCiccio, academic dean at Rivier College in Nashua, said the college works to educate students, especially freshmen, about using Internet sources responsibly. DeCiccio, however, was more optimistic about the positive impact Wikipedia could have on writing.

The key for educators, said DeCiccio, is to wrap their hands around the technology and use it in an effective way.

“I think there’s much there to look at in a positive way,” he said. “The fact that people are writing; everyone around us. It’s interesting to me that people want to contribute to this.”