Academic wiki

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Members of this list may be interested in a project a friend 
(also a consultant) is working on with a major research 
university.  The proposal is to create an alternative to the 
Wikipedia, using the university's resources, which I understand 
to mean the faculty and (perhaps) some students.  The notion is 
that the Wikipedia, for all its many merits, suffers from not 
qualifying its contributors before they write and edit; whereas a 
university has a community of experts to draw upon.  The goal is 
to create an encyclopedia for the use of the university 
community.  It was not clear from the summary I heard whether by 
"community" the proposal meant the members of the particular 
institution or the academic community in general.

The area of community-generated content, of which the Wikipedia 
is perhaps the best-known example, is of growing importance, 
especially in consumer segments.  I would be interested to know 
people's views of the viability of projects like this in the 
academic setting.  It would appear to challenge many traditional 
notions of content development, publishing, licensing, etc.

Joe Esposito