If you haven't seen this, you might be interested.
Terry Phelps

 <<Picture (Device Independent Bitmap)>> Wikipedia becomes a class
assignment 
By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Technology WriterThu Nov 1, 6:35 AM ET 
Some academics cringe when students turn to Wikipedia as a reference for
term papers.
University of Washington-Bothell professor Martha Groom has more of an
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" response to the online encyclopedia
that anyone can write or edit.
Instead of asking students in her environmental history course to turn
in one big paper at the end of the semester, she requires them either to
write an original Wikipedia article or to do a major edit on an existing
one.
The inspiration came to her as she prepared teaching materials for her
class.
"I would find these things on Wikipedia," she said, and would think,
"Gosh, this is awfully thin here. I wonder if my students could fill
this in?"
Wikipedia has been vilified as a petri dish for misinformation, and the
variable accuracy of its articles is a point Groom readily concedes.
Since the advent of the Web, she said, the quality of sources students
cite has deteriorated.
For her students, the Wikipedia experiment was "transformative," and
students' writing online proved better than the average undergrad
research paper.
Knowing their work was headed for the Web, not just one harried
professor's eyes, helped students reach higher - as did the standards
set by the volunteer "Wikipedians" who police entries for accuracy and
neutral tone, Groom said.
The exercise also gave students a taste of working in the real world of
peer-reviewed research.
Most of the articles were well received, but Groom said some students
caught heat from Wikipedia editors for doing exactly what college
students are trained to do: write an argumentative, critical essay.
"Some people were a little rude," she said of the anonymous Wikipedia
editors. Ultimately, she had to teach the students the difference
between good secondary research and the average college paper.
"You don't get to say that last little bit on, 'This is why this is the
truth and the way,'" she said.