The aim of this study to find out the student’s evaluation and motivations for searching for information’s in wikipedia. Furthermore, to gain an understanding of college students' information usage regarding Wikipedia.
This paper is divided into first explaining the public goods in science. Followed by the definition of wikipedia the public good itself and then consequently to that the role of public good provision of knowledge. Further topics are followed by explaining the behaviour of college students and their perception of information out of wikipedia and also the reason why the students are using wikipedia. The main risk exists by evaluating the information found on the articles in the encyclopaedia. Is it reliable or not? Since Wikipedia was not trusted by academics, students were not recommended to use it.
Table of Content
1. Introduction
2. Definition of terms
2.1 Public goods in science
2.2 What is Wikipedia
2.3 Role ofpublic goodprovision of knowledge
3. Is Wikipedia as an open good a reliable source?
4. Why do college students use Wikipedia?
5. Do the students evaluate the information quality of wikipedia?
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
8. References