Using Wikipedia: a scholar redraws academic lines by including it in his syllabus

" ... Most professors mention the website as “that place that you are not allowed to cite in your research papers”. This mini-lesson is hammered into the head of every freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. Yet, Wikipedia remains a popular resource for both students and professors when they need immediate access to specific bits of information that fall outside of their areas of knowledge. Wikipedia is the #6 most accessed website in the world, and the only nonprofit site in the bunch. In essence, we have a love-hate relationship with Wikipedia in higher education. In my classes, however, I’ve been experimenting for the past six years with how we might move beyond this narrow, schizophrenic approach to one of the most popular educational resources online. And what I’ve found is that my students are excited by the idea of engaging with this part of the internet that is otherwise deemed 'off-limits' in their courses ... I teach our required course in sociological theory - something, admittedly, most students dread ... First the students individually draw a card from a 'deck of social theorists' I’ve constructed to reveal the name and photograph of the sociologist they’ll be researching for the project. While they’re welcome to exchange their card with someone else, or even draw again, I find that most stick with the one they’ve drawn originally.  Students then review their adopted theorist’s page and begin the process of upgrading the information in a way that reflects research practices that meet the standards of what we might consider acceptable in academia ..."