This is according to a study of more than 1,650 students at two universities in Australia, which found that although almost nine out of 10 use Wikipedia, only 65 per cent deemed it to be a ¡°useful¡± or ¡°very useful¡± resource.

The website was generally regarded as an ¡°introductory and/or supplementary source of information¡± and was seen to be of limited usefulness compared with university library resources, e-books, lecture recordings and academic literature databases.

Indeed, only 24 per cent of respondents placed Wikipedia in the ¡°very useful¡± category, above only three other digital applications included in the survey: Twitter (reported as ¡°very useful¡± by only 3.5 per cent of students); educational games and simulations (18.6 per cent); and ¡°other university websites¡± (11.9 per cent).

¡°While a prevalent element of many students¡¯ digital academic practice, Wikipedia is not universally used and/or valued,¡± says the Monash University study, ¡°Students¡¯ use of Wikipedia as an academic resource ¨C patterns of use and perceptions of usefulness¡±.

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It concludes that the widespread but largely mundane role that Wikipedia now plays in contemporary higher education suggests that universities and university teachers ¡°should continue to consider ways of better integrating Wikipedia into their accepted modes of teaching and learning provision¡±.

The findings support the opinion that ¡°there is little point recommending against student use of Wikipedia, or attempting to prohibit it altogether¡±. However, there is ¡°clearly sense¡± in supporting students in becoming critical and proficient users of the website as part of their information gathering practices, the study says.

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¡°There are clearly many ways in which universities need to engage more directly in supporting and enhancing the role that Wikipedia is now playing in students¡¯ scholarship,¡± it states.

Neil Selwyn, professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University and co-author of the study, said: ¡°The?early?alarmist?fears that?Wikipedia?would lead?to?a dumbing down of university study?was not apparent, but neither is Wikipedia ushering in a new dawn of enlightenment and?students and teachers?creating their own knowledge.

¡°Lecturers should be encouraging their classes to edit and improve Wikipedia pages. At the very least, more academics should become Wikipedia editors ¨C writing on their areas of expertise.¡±

Last year, the University of California, Berkeley became the first higher education institution to hire a ¡°Wikipedian in residence¡±, Kevin Gorman, to help students to publish academic work on the user-generated online encyclopaedia.

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He told Times Higher Education he was not concerned that encouraging the use of Wikipedia might push students away from traditional resources such as a university library.

¡°It¡¯s true that a lot of undergrads don¡¯t visit physical libraries, but as counter-intuitive as it sounds, we have found that making students do Wikipedia-based assignments is a great way to get students back into the library, looking for sources that they can¡¯t find online,¡± he said.

The Monash study wasfunded by the Australian government¡¯s Office of Learning and Teaching and has been accepted for publication in the journals Studies in Higher Education and?Journal of Higher Education Policy & Management.

chris.parr@tesglobal.com