Once Shunned by Academics, Wikipedia Now a Teaching Tool

Once shunned by academics, Wikipedia now a teaching tool -- Physorg.com

Writing for Wikipedia "seems like a much larger stage, more of a challenge," than a term paper, said professor Jon Beasley-Murray, who teaches Latin American literature at the University of British Columbia in this western Canadian city...

As an experiment, last January Beasley-Murray promised his students a rare A+ grade if they got their projects for his literature course, called "Murder, Madness and Mayhem," accepted as a Wikipedia Featured Article." In May, three entries created by nine students in the course became the first student works to reach Wikipedia's top rank. Their articles, about the book "El Señor Presidente" by Nobel prize-winning Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias, ran May 5 on Wikipedia's home page.