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Many academics have expressed skepticism, right here on Wired Campus blog, about the validity of Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. But some researchers are taking an approach more along the lines of: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
The Institute for the Future of the Book, a center supported by the University of Southern California, announced today that it will soon unveil an online scholarly press, of sorts, called MediaCommons, that will focus on the discipline of media studies. The announcement comes just days after Rice University unveiled the first all-digital university press.
MediaCommons will try a variety of new ideas to shake up scholarly publishing. One of them is essentially a mini-Wikipedia about aspects of the discipline. Or, as the announcement states, “electronic reference works, in which a community collectively produces, in a mode analogous to current wiki projects, authoritative resources for research in the field.”
Visit: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1419
By Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education: The Wired Campus, July 17, 2006
