Information Literacy in Wikipedia

As a very representative instance, Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia has 30 million articles in 287 languages, including over 4.3 million in the English Wikipedia, are written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone having access to the site. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet.

About the evaluation of information from social media like Wikipedia, Besiki Stvilia, Michael B. Twidale, Linda C. Smithand Les Gasser mention that: “Large-scale, continuously evolving, open collaborative content creation systems such as Wikipedia have become increasingly popular. At the same time, in an attempt to lower the bottom line, many traditional publishers and information intensive organizations have opened their content creation processes to the general public by adding wikis and blogs to their regular channels of information creation and distribution. We are witnessing the establishment of a dynamic grid of large-scale, open information systems fueled by active participation from the general public in content creation and quality assurance activities. ” 

In addition, there are two other enlightening scholarly articles discussing about the credibility of Wikipedia and the online behavior of its users' information literacy that written by Naeemah Clark and David C. DeAndrea. 

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Stvilia, Besiki, et al. "Information quality work organization in Wikipedia." Journal of The American Society for Information Science & Technology 59, no. 6 (April 2008): 983-1001, accessed December 20, 2013.

DeAndrea, David C. "Participatory Social Media and the Evaluation of Online Behavior." Human Communication Research 38, no. 4 (October 1, 2012): 510-528, accessed December 20, 2013.

Clark, Naeemah. "Trust Me! Wikipedia's Credibility among College Students." International Journal of Instructional Media 38, no. 1 (March 2011): 27-36, accessed December 20, 2013.