Wikipedia - The Most Trusted Research Database Authored By The Average User

Hello all,

This is my approved proposal for my final project. It's under the working title "Wikipedia - The Most Trusted Research Database Authored By The Average User". The project will focus mostly about how WIkipedia has changed the way we search for specific information about a particular subject. The function of schools and libraries have changed drastically thanks to a system that is not only accessible to anyone with internet access but can be edited by anyone with various degrees of expertise on that subject, including none. Does that mean that only certain people with a specific, significant amount of expertise should be able to edit a wiki or should the general public have an equal say? Where is the line drawn? How do students access and learn information? How do schools adapt to this technology? Do they resist instead? How do local library branches cope with being an expensive brick-and-mortar version of a free technology? Should people have to pay to access this information? All these questions have been answered in one way or another by those who are familiar to the technology. However, the use of wikis is still relatively new to the developed world, which means traditional institutions (i.e. schools, libraries, even our own government agencies) have not yet fully adapted. My project focus on a brief history of wikis and the impact it has on the macroeconomic status of our current global economy.