Wikipedia has pros and cons for student use. While it provides a huge amount of free, accessible information, its open editing policy means articles can be inaccurately edited. There have been issues like vandalism, bias, and schools banning its use. Potential solutions include stronger policies only allowing certified editors to contribute, though this may require fees that reduce accessibility.

1. Should students use Wikipedia?

2. Pros
• It is an free online website, which means it is
accessible to anyone.
• Contains millions of articles in dozens of
diferent languages.
• Free-editing policy allows a wider variety ideas
to be included in the articles
• It is particularly useful for highschool and, to
some degree, university students.

3. Issues
• With the free-editing policy, users may edit
information in existing articles without even
registering to wikipedia.org.
– Existing articles may get purposely vandalized as
pranks or because of political reasons. For
example articles related to history might be
altered in order to favor a particular side.
– People who just want to contribute to Wikipedia
may not have the sufficient knowledge to provide
accurate information in a particular subject.

4. • In order to create articles, only a free user
account is needed.
– Fake articles may be created as pranks, as
defamation strategies or to favor an individual or
group.
– Wikipedia editors may write biased articles, even
if they try to be unbiased, they may do it
subconsciously.

5. Vandalism Cases
• There have been many cases where famous
people have been pronounced ‘dead’ in
Wikipedia articles.

6. Real life examples
• Several educational institutions have started to
officially ban the use of Wikipedia as a primary
research source.
• Such institutions include prestigious high schools
and universities such as UCLA and the University
of Pennsylvania.
• The International Baccalaureate has recently
implemented a policy which forbids citing
Wikipedia.org as a main resource in coursework.

7. • Ted Stevens, a US senator has proposed to
completely ban Wikipedia.org from public
institutions such as schools, libraries and state
universities, arguing that it may confuse
younger students.

8. Solutions
• Educational institutions may ban wikipedia.org if
necessary. By doing so, students will have no
option but research in other sources. This would
decrease the number of inaccuracies submitted
by students in their tasks.
• Wikipedia.org could also implement stronger
policies in order to ensure the safety of its
content. Only certified users should be allowed to
edit information in existing articles, and only
qualified professionals should be able to create
new articles.

9. • By implementing such policy, money will be
needed by wikipedia.org to pay professionals
to write articles.
• These costs will be covered by charging a fee
to users; Wikipedia.org would be more
inaccessible, but the quality of its content will
be higher.