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Literature Review
In the twelve years since its creation, Wikipedia’s reputation in academia has been mixed, but there has been no shortage of academic study of this popular website. Possibly the most well-known empirical examination of Wikipedia as a source is the 2005 Nature study, in which a sample of science articles on Wikipedia was found to have an average of four errors per article, as compared to three per article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, a finding refuted by Encyclopedia Britannica.

The nature and extent of student use of Wikipedia has been documented in two Project Information Literacy studies. 75% of college students reported at least occasionally using Wikipedia for school assignments, with most using it at or near the beginning of the research process.

Despite cautionary tales of disinformation, official banning as a source, unfavorable comparisons to traditional encyclopedias, and critique regarding adherence to its own quality standards, Wikipedia remains a well-used educational resource. In fact, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, education level is the strongest predictor of Wikipedia use. Pew research found Wikipedia is most popular among Internet users with at least a college degree, 69% of whom use the site.

A 2011 opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, written by a publisher of scholarly encyclopedias, advised academics to contribute to Wikipedia in order to improve it. He also urged academic publishers to build links between this “pre-search” tool and more sophisticated sources, saying Wikipedia was an important part of the educational “information ecosystem.”

In 2011, a Pew Internet and American Life Project study on Wikipedia found that usage in the United States has increased 17% from 2007 to 2011, a rate double the number of new users. A 2013 study by Pew also determined that twice as many teachers use Wikipedia for research than the general public.