The Austrian way of Wiki(pedia)!

Abstract

Although the success of online encyclopedias such as Wiki-pedia is indisputable, researchers have questioned usefulness of Wikipedia in educational settings. Problems such as copy&paste syndrome, unchecked quality, or fragmentation of knowledge have been recognized as serious drawbacks for a wide spread application of Wikipedia in universities or high schools. In this paper we present a Wiki-based encyclopedia called Austria-Forum that aims to combine openness and collaboration aspects of Wikipedia with approaches to build a structured, quality inspected, and context-sensitive online encyclopedia. To ensure tractability of the publishing process the system focuses on providing information within a local Austrian context. It is our experience that such an approach represents a first step of a proper application of online encyclopedias in educational settings.