Wikipedia again

The tendency in universities is for librarians and lecturers to direct students away from Wikipedia - because anyone can edit it, the information contained within it cannot necessarily be trusted. But how do students actually use Wikipedia? A piece of research conducted by the University of Washington's Information School (1). suggests that student use of Wikipedia is far more careful than previously assumed. The students surveyed in the research...

• tend to use Wikipedia as part of their "presearch" - initial research around a topic to help with background and keywords
• very rarely return to Wikipedia at the end of a piece of work, and hardly ever cite Wikipedia in their assignments
• focus on the positives provided by Wikipedia - coverage, currency, comprehensibility and convenience
• are well aware of the limitations of Wikipedia in particular relating to its credibility

Does this sound like you? How do you make use of web resources - and Wikipedia in particular?

(1) Head, Alison, and Eisenberg, Michael. "How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course-related research" First Monday [online], Volume 15 Number 3. Available from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2830/2476. Accessed 23 March 2010