Knol: a viable alternative to Wikipedia?

]Wikipedia always had one glaring problem for use in academic research.

It is an anonymous source of information. Authors don’t need to tell us their names or affiliation. This leaves the door open for all sorts of incorrect information and bias. Of course some will argue that the whole setup of Wikipedia is self-regulating i.e. if someone publishes incorrect information another person can simply come along and correct it.

But the fact remains that the information on Wikipedia is simply impossible to evaluate for quality, ownership and so on, which leaves it in a decidedly grey area as an academic source.

Now Google are launching Knol – a free online encyclopedia, but one which is authored by experts. Google explain the thinking behind Knol:

“The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.”

Knol is still in development but it’s a great initiative and we look forward to its development.

Aisling McDermott