THE EPISTEMOLOGY WAR: WIKIPEDIA, WEB 2.0, THE ACADEMY, AND THE BATTLE OVER THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF KNOWLEDGE

Henk Eijkman
Learning and Teaching Development
University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy
Australia

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of an empirical research project that investigates the attitude of academics (or faculty) towards Wikipedia and how their attitudes impact on their use of Web 2.0 for educational purposes. The research data has been obtained via an online survey of academics predominantly from the University of New South Wales campuses in Canberra (ADFA) and Sydney as well as from other universities in Australia and abroad. The findings to date indicate that some academics are well informed about, and embrace Wikipedia, and by extension Web 2.0 social networking applications and services for the purposes of learning. Yet Wikipedia tends to provoke strong opinions, primarily negative and proves to be a highly divisive and controversial issue. While quite a few respondents occupy the middle ground and display a cautious if not somewhat curious attitude towards Wikipedia, those with a negative opinion appear to hold them much more strongly than the few who indicate positive opinions. The paper makes an important contribution to the educational Web 2.0 literature by providing empirical data that highlights a considerable degree of apprehension, if not hostility towards what is perceived to be Wikipedia’s disruptive influence on traditional knowledge construction processes and the authority of academia. Despite, or perhaps because of, a long history of online learning, and notwithstanding the appropriateness of a critical approach, these results point to a problematic acculturation of academia into Web 2.0’s worldview and practices.

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