Wikipedia gets a critical look
A University of Washington-Bothell professor has decided to involve students in the online system of Web publishing and peer-review editing.
Environmental History Professor Martha Groom decided this term to ask students in her course to write an original Wikipedia article or to do a major edit on an existing one.
The inspiration came to her as she prepared teaching materials for her class.
Groom said, “I would find these things on Wikipedia,” a vast and collectively edited online encyclopedia.
“I would think, ‘Gosh, this is awfully thin here. I wonder if my students could fill this in?’ “
Wikipedia has been criticized for being rife with misinformation, and the variable accuracy of its articles is a point Groom readily concedes. In recent years the quality of sources students tend to cite has deteriorated.
Her students have learned how to use Web information more critically. She said their writing has also improved.
Knowing their work was headed for the Web, not just one harried professor’s eyes, helped students reach higher — as did the standards set by the volunteer “Wikipedians” who police entries for accuracy and neutral tone, Groom said.
Corbis grabs Veer
One of the Web’s premiere photo stock Web sites, Corbis, has purchased a smaller, but very successful Canadian competitor, Veer.com.
Veer has offices in Calgary, Alberta; New York; Berlin and Düsseldorf, Germany. It’s the fourth-largest stock photo company on the planet, according to Corbis. Veer actually sells some collections from the largest stock photography distributor, Getty Images, the main rival of Corbis. Corbis is based in Seattle and founded with money from Bill Gates.
Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. Notably, Calgary also is the home of iStock.com, another one of the top 10 Web stock photo and reselling sites.
Daily Show all the way back
Media conglomerate Viacom announced the launch of thedailyshow.com, an online archive of all previous TV show episodes of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.”
The new site features video clips from every episode dating back to 1999, the year Stewart took over the show.
The site also offers a “wayback randomizer,” which will randomly pick a clip from any show 1999 to the present.