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IMAGE:Professor Neil Selwyn at Monash University's Faculty of Education found that while Wikipedia was is a popular background resource with students, it had not supplanted traditional sources of intellectual scholarship... view more

Credit: Greg Ford

Academics and students alike should be making better use of Wikipedia, a major study of digital technology use in Higher Education has recommended.

The Australia-UK collaboration led by Professor Neil Selwyn from Monash University's Faculty of Education found that while Wikipedia was is a popular background resource with students, it had not supplanted traditional sources of intellectual scholarship and authority.

The study of more than 1600 students found that while Wikipedia was used by seven in eight students, the world's sixth most visited website wasn't seen as the most useful education resource. Google and other internet search engines, library websites, learning management systems and Facebook all ranked higher. Most students used Wikipedia for background research.

The researchers suggest that given the important but relatively background role Wikipedia plays in student life, universities should continue to consider ways of better integrating Wikipedia into their accepted modes of teaching and learning provision.

"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," Professor Selwyn 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 - writing on their areas of expertise."

"Wikipedia is here to stay, and universities should be getting more engaged with it rather than just trying to deny its existence."

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Wikipedia use -- nothing to be ashamed about

IMAGE:Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is among the 2015 Dan David Prize winners. view more

Credit: Niccol Caranti.

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of the ubiquitous online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is among the winners of the 2015 Dan David Prize, which annually bestows three awards of $1 million each. The announcement of the winners was made on February 10 by Tel Aviv University President Prof. Joseph Klafter, chairman of the Dan David Prize Board of Directors, and Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, Chairman of the Dan David Foundation.

The prizes are granted for "proven, exceptional and distinct excellence in the sciences, arts, and humanities that have made an outstanding contribution to humanity." The laureates, who donate 10% of their prize money towards doctoral and postdoctoral Tel Aviv University scholarships, will be honored at a ceremony on May 17, 2015, during the annual TAU Board of Governors conference.

The Dan David Prize, named for international businessman and philanthropist Dan David, maintains its global headquarters at TAU. Each year, the International Board chooses one field within each of three time dimensions: Past (highlighting fields that expand knowledge of former times), Present (recognizing achievements that shape and enrich contemporary society), and Future (focusing on breakthroughs that hold great promise for the improvement of our world). Following a review process by independent Review Committees comprised of renowned scholars and professionals, the International Board then chooses the laureates for each field.

The 2015 Dan David Prize laureates are:

Present -- in the field of "The Information Revolution": Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is utilized by nearly all Internet users to access information. Wales has stated that his motivation for launching Wikipedia was to create a world in which every person "is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

Past -- in the field of "Historians and Their Sources": Prof. Peter R. Brown, Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, and Prof. Alessandro Portelli of University of Rome La Sapienza will share the prize. Prof. Brown is a historian studying the late antiquity period whose "groundbreaking studies have reshaped the way we understand social and cultural change," the prize committee said. Prof. Portelli is considered one of the greatest practitioners of oral history, whose "studies of the interaction between private and collective memory have challenged the way we understand recording the past," according to the panel of judges.

Future -- in the field of "Biomechanics": Dr. Cyrus Chothia, Prof. David Haussler, and Prof. Michael Waterman, a 2011 recipient of a TAU honorary doctorate, will share the prize. Dr. Chothia, an emeritus scientist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology and emeritus fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, pioneered the understanding of the relationships between protein sequence, structure, function, and interaction. Prof. Haussler, a professor of biomolecular engineering and director of the Genomics Institute at University of California, Santa Cruz, helped assemble the first draft of the human genome sequence and leads the development of the UCSC Genome Browser used worldwide for interpreting genome sequences. Prof. Waterman holds an Endowed Associates Chair in Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Southern California, where he made seminal and influential contributions to biological sequence analysis.

Past Dan David Prize winners include US Vice President Al Gore, film directors Joel and Ethan Coen, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and genome pioneer Prof. Eric Lander. For more information on the Dan David Prize and this year's laureates, visit http://www.dandavidprize.org.

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Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales among 2015 Dan David Prize winners

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia. Photo: John Davidson

Wikipedia co-founder and influential technology entrepreneur Jimmy Wales has slammed the federal government's plan to make telcos store the metadata of every phone and internet user as a "human rights violation" and is considering the launch of his new mobile service in Australia.

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Fairfax Media,Mr Walesopened up about his views on high-speed internet and data retention.

Mr Wales is co-chairman atThe People's Operator (TPO), which is a mobile service provider in Britain with a market capitalisation of 98 million ($190 million) that gives 10 per cent of every customer's bill to the charity of their choice. A quarter of overall profits go to a pool of charities picked by the company and it is weighing an entry into the Australian market.

"Australia is very high on our list because while the social media stuff we're building is designed to be multilingual in the long run, in the first cut it's English," he said. "So it's much easier to drop in an Australian partner and we'd be keenly interested in an Australian partner."

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TPO is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which means it resells services that are based on another carrier's network. The company will launch in the United States in the next three months.

"The jump from one market to two is bigger than the jump from the second to the third because of all the reconfiguring we've done it all becomes easier,"he said. "After we get launched in the US we'll have to take a deep breath.

"Once we're there we will be looking to other markets and within six months or a year we'll be hoping to launch somewhere else."

He said the telco would decide on its next launch targets by November at the latest and had confidentially met with several telecommunications company chief executives during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

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Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales slams federal government data retention laws

Have you ever wanted to read more, but never found yourself with enough time? Do you love to browse Wikipedia, but find that you don't get to finish what you've started? What if you could read a whole elaborate Wikipedia page in five minutes? What if you could do it in two minutes? That's the idea behind Quickipedia, a speed-reading app designed by Wasdesign, LLC.

Quickipedia is powered by Spritz, an innovative new program that allows users to read upwards of 1,000 words a minute, or almost five times faster than the average person's reading speed. While this might sound impossible, it's actually backed up by quite a bit of science. The human brain is capable of processing information very quickly, but by placing a reticle in the ideal location within a word, Spritz helps your brain to comprehend a word in a fraction of a second. Worried about not remembering all those words you just read? Interestingly enough, most people who read things using a program that utilizes Spritz find that their comprehension improves with use.

Quickipedia is a Spritz-enabled reader that allows users to browse Wikipedia articles and read them at impressive speeds. It's a wonderfully intuitive and well-designed app that allows users to choose from 40 different speeds, until they figure out what is most comfortable for them. The search feature itself is impressively slick, though a little counter-intuitive -- as it can be a little difficult to tell which article you may want. However, once you find the article you're looking for, Quickipedia is indispensable. There are two modes of reading -- full page "classic" reading, or Spritzing, which feeds you a single word at a time at a speed that you choose. The speeds range from 50 words per minute to 1,200 words per minute, but we recommend that users start at 250 per minute and see what feels comfortable from there. We found ourselves capable of comfortably reading at 900 words per minute after we began to get adjusted to using Quickipedia.

If you are looking for a great, easy way to start Spritzing, or if you're just a Wikipedia junkie like we are, Quickipedia is a great jumping off point. Quickipedia is available for both iPhone and iPad, and costs $1.

Who Quickipedia is for: Feeling guilty about how little reading you do? Want to test your innate superhuman reading powers? This is for you!

Who Quickipedia isn't for: If you're not into reading Wikipedia articles, or are Kanye West, this probably isn't going to convert you into liking them or reading stuff.

-Amber Neely (@SurferAmber)

by MacNN Staff

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Hands On: Quickipedia (iOS)

Someone called the Beygency! Beck will think twice before going up against Beyonce again. The veteran singer-songwriter, 44, took home the 2015 Album of the Year Grammy for Morning Phase, surprisingly beating out the Drunk in Love singers blockbuster, critically acclaimed self-titled visual album.

PHOTOS: Memorable Grammy show moments

After his win, Becks Wikipedia page got some interesting updates that appear to have come straight out of Kanye Wests mouth. One new fact read, He is the stealer of The Album of the Year award, before noting that the Blue Moon singer stole the honor from Beyonce Knowles, the Queen of the World. The page has since been changed to read, On February 8, 2015, at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Morning Phase won three Grammys.

PHOTOS: Men in tuxes at the Grammys

It wasnt the first attack on the singer. When he took the stage to accept the Album of the Year Award, rapper Kanye West hopped up prepared to interrupt him before deciding against it.

Kanye West appears on stage as Beck accepts his Grammy for Album of the Year Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

The move was reminiscent of Wests infamous 2009 MTV VMA moment when he took the microphone from Taylor Swift, declaring, Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the greatest videos of all time.

PHOTOS: Wildest Grammys fashion

At the Grammys, Kim Kardashians husband, 37, restrained himself, waiting to blast Beck until after the show. It turns out the Only One emcee definitely wasnt kidding when he jumped onstage.

"I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us," he told E! (via Billboard). "We ain't gonna play with them no more. And Beck needs to respect artistry, and he should've given his award to Beyonce."

Read more:
Beck's Wikipedia Page Hacked to Say He Stole the 2015 Grammy From Beyonce: Details