Kate and others, after having made the same experience as Kate -- that is, students increasingly relying on Wikipedia for definitions, core concepts, references, and summaries of definitions -- I decided not to accept any reference to Wikipedia in student papers anymore. Wikipedia is easy since you don't have to leave your desk, but not authoritative. But it would be interesting to learn about the views of the community in this respect - am I oldfashioned? ;-) Best Frank
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kate O'Neill Sent: Wed 13/09/2006 16:28 To: Raul Pacheco; Global Environmental Politics Education ListServe Subject: Re: Public goods really easy piece? and Wikipedia Raul and others, I'm posting this to the list because I'm usually uncomfortable with letting students rely on Wikipedia as a source. But, as it happens, the wikipedia piece on public goods is pretty good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods) and certainly meets accessibility criteria on both counts. In fact, it's pretty much a public good itself, at least for anyone with an internet connection. So, my question is: does anyone know of a set of guidelines for students' use of Wikipedia? I assigned a research paper to my class last semester, and nearly all of them used wikipedia in their citations, in fact, as their fundamental source for definitions etc. I'd not anticipated this, so we hadn't talked about it. I tend to use it to refresh my knowledge, and would rarely see it as authoritative, unless I can verify it myself. But, banning students from citing it also doesn't seem a constructive way to handle this. Thanks for any attention to this... cheers, Kate At 2:00 AM -0700 9/13/06, Raul Pacheco wrote: Dear all, A few of my students are having a really hard time grasping the notion of public goods (and global public goods). I asked them to read Hardin's 1968 seminal article and also a paper by Scott Barrett on the global public goods framework (which might be interesting for people who were recently discussing the Sunstein article comparing Kyoto and Montreal - Barrett does compare both as well). Still, they have had a hard time. Can anybody point out to a really easy, accessible source that defines public goods in a clear, coherent way? Thank you sincerely, Raul -- --------------------------------------------- Raul Pacheco-Vega Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability The University of British Columbia 413.26-2202 Main Mall Vancouver, British Columbia Canada V6T 1Z4 ----------------------------------------------
