Imogen Casebourne, Dr. Chris Davies, Dr. Michelle Fernandes, Dr. Naomi Norman

“ Wikipedia has continued to develop and refine its quality review processes in part as a result of the findings of the Nature study and of other similar studies. However, there has never been any attempt to replicate, better or extend Nature's study, across disciplines and languages. Such a study would not only allow a greater understanding of the accuracy and quality issues pertaining to Wikipedia entries but would also provide information on how such issues may be addressed and/ or resolved. ”

“ We do not consider, certainly, that different viewpoints on the same topic are necessarily invalid – indeed, they are part and parcel of academic life, as is variation in academics' judgment of quality. Just as an article submitted to a journal for peer review will very often receive diverging judgments, so did a number of the online encyclopaedia articles in the present sample (such as, for instance, the following where one reviewer differed markedly from the other reviewer or reviewers: Energia Renovable, Antibiotic Resistance, Preschool Education, Egypt) . ”

“ In the case of those two encyclopaedias, Mawsoah and Arab Encyclopaedia, Wikipedia came out lower on style, and more or less the same on the other key criteria of accuracy, references, overall judgment and overall quality score. In all other comparisons, Wikipedia fared somewhat better on references and, with the exception of articles in the Humanities and MPLS (Mathematics, Physics and Life Sciences) where Wikipedia scored no better on accuracy, style/ readability, overall judgment and overall quality score. ”

“ In December 2005 the scientific journal Nature reported on a study they had undertaken to compare the accuracy of science entries on Wikipedia with those on the online version of Encyclopaedia Britannica [2] . Unlike Wikipedia, which relies on voluntary contributors, regardless of proven mastery or qualifications, Encyclopaedia Britannica uses selected paid expert advisors and editors. At the time of the Nature study, Wikipedia comprised 3.7 million articles in 200 languages and was ranked the 37th most visited website on the internet [2] . ”

“ But the analysis of qualitative data did allow us to build a more interesting composite picture, in which the balance of qualities in a particular article were seen often to outweigh specific shortcomings. Insofar as Wikipedia articles were more often judged to provide more comprehensive and up to date content, useful references and at least comparable levels of accuracy and citability, it can be argued that reviewers (though critical when asked about readability) were prepared to forego that to some extent given the presence of the other qualities. ”

“ There was no question of using quantifiable content analysis on material such as this, given the fact that much of the language used had been generated by us in creating the criteria to be considered in the reviewer materials. Thus, it was the task of the qualitative data analysis to make interpretive judgments about salient themes and patterns, through repeated reading of the data followed by exploratory attempts at writing coherent and descriptions of results justifiable by substantial and wide-ranging use of illustrative material from the original raw data. ”

“ We asked reviewers to comment on a range of quality criteria, summarised as accuracy, incorporating validity, completeness, relevance, neutrality/ bias, currency; use of references; style/ readability incorporating conciseness, language, spelling and grammar, coherence, use of illustrative material, and enjoyment. Having commented on each of these aspects for each paper separately, reviewers were asked to compare the two ('Please use the space below to make any additional comments about the two articles in comparison with each other') . ”

“ Above all, the analysis of qualitative data aims to capture things that are hard to quantify precisely: feelings, attitudes and opinions of reviewers that are important and illuminating but are often also imprecise and hard to compare. ”

“ In this instance at least it seems that ‘bias’ is used to described insufficient scope in the discussion of a particular topic, rather than deliberately preferential treatment for one particular point of view.
One of the few suggestions that a Wikipedia article showed bias of any kind came in one reviewer's comments on the Energia Renovable article:
"There is a tendency to disregard nuclear energy, particularly fusion, which is a flawed view commonly supported by green energy advocates." ”

“ La percepción es el primer proceso cognoscitivo, a través del cual los sujetos captan información del entorno, la razón de ésta información es que usa la que está implícita en las energías que llegan a los sistemas sensoriales y que permiten al individuo animal (incluyendo al hombre) formar una representación de la realidad de su entorno. La luz, por ejemplo codifica la información sobre la distribución de la materia-energía en el espacio-tiempo, permitiendo una representación de los objetos en el espacio, su movimiento y la emisión de energía luminosa. ”

“ For the most part, reviewers in all subject areas worked well enough with the range of criteria against which they were asked to judge articles. In analysing their final comparative comments about articles, it is possible perhaps to detect distinct tendencies to prefer slightly different values in the humanities and social science article reviews, from those of mathematics, science and medicine. ”

“ As mentioned above, the qualitative results from this study indicated that academic reviewers are generally open-minded about what constitutes quality in articles in online encyclopaedias. We would therefore suggest that, on the basis of these findings, the following tentative hypothesis is worth testing in a future study: the perceived quality of online encyclopaedia articles is as much dependent on a coherent and engaging narrative about a topic as it is on extensive provision of technical information. ”

“ The academics and student should share the same native language. They should have a number of publications in peer-reviewed journals, or be a leading investigator on a large-scale, funded project. Each student was asked to nominate three academic experts and to provide contact details and a brief biography for each of three nominees. The list of nominees was reviewed by the research team to ensure they were eligible for participation. In the rare cases where the academic did not have a PhD, students were asked to nominate another academic in their stead. ”

“ All content is freely available and approximately 13-15% of global internet users visit Wikipedia each day. Wikipedia is a collaboratively compiled and edited encyclopaedia with contributions in the form of text, pictures, formatting, citations and lists from multiple, unpaid editors and professionals. ”

“ It seemed, generally, that the academics reviewing these articles were generally willing to accept certain deficiencies in online encyclopaedia articles, so long as they combined some degree of accuracy, currency and scope with an account that brought a subject to life for newcomers to an area. In that respect, substantial content was no substitute for the lack of an underlying dynamic or coherence in its account of the topic, which is clearly considered by these reviewers to be a problem with respect to each of the following articles:
"It [Wikipedia] is a very shallow article [...] ”

“ Nature invited independent academic scientists to peer review entries (in the English language) for their particular areas of science expertise, from both Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Each scientist was asked to identify any inaccuracies and comment on the articles' quality and readability, without being aware of the source of the article. Forty-two reviews were submitted to Nature revealing on average four inaccuracies per Wikipedia article, in contrast to three per Encyclopaedia Britannica article. ”

“ La percepción del sabor de los alimentos tiene más de olfativo que gustativo. Existe en realidad como fenómeno psíquico complejo, la percepción, el resultado de la interpretación de esas impresiones sensibles por medio de una serie de estructuras psíquicas que no proceden ya de la estimulación del medio, sino que pertenecen al sujeto. En la percepción se encuentran inseparablemente las sensaciones con los elementos interpretativos. ”

“ The investigators are thankful to the Clarendon Scholars Council, the Spanish and Latin American Societies, the Middle East Centre and the Khalil Research Institute, the Medical Sciences Division and the Middle Common Rooms of various colleges of the University of Oxford for their help in recruitment.
The investigators appreciate all those students and academics at the University of Oxford who expressed an interest in the study and thank them all for their overwhelming enthusiasm. ”

“ Mediante la percepción, la información recopilada por todos los sentidos se procesa, y se forma la idea de un sólo objeto. Es posible sentir distintas cualidades de un mismo objeto, y mediante la percepción, unirlas, determinar de qué objeto provienen, y determinar a su vez que este es un único objeto. ”

“ The use of the feedback tool devised for this research produced results that were comparable across reviewers, and allowed for consistency of measurement of views, especially in terms of quantitative data. Therefore, in any future study, we consider that it would definitely be worthwhile to develop and refine this instrument. Further pilot work would be needed to test the appropriateness of specific criteria, such as conciseness, readability and enjoyment, in order that reviewers are consistent in their application of these to specific articles. ”

“ The difficulty of finding a substantially increased number of articles from other encyclopaedias against which to compare Wikipedia articles. The difficulty of securing and managing the participation of a sufficient number of academic experts for a large-scale representative study. The complexity of carrying out a sufficiently rigorous analysis of qualitative data on a large-scale without recourse to some degree of quantitative content analysis, which is not feasible with the present model of feedback tool. ”