Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science (한국문헌정보학회지)

Korean Society For Library And Information Science (한국문헌정보학회)
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Analysis of Wikipedia Citations in Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

학술논문에서의 위키피디아 인용에 관한 연구

  • 심원식 (성균관대학교 문헌정보학과) ;
  • 변제연 (성균관대학교 일반대학원 문헌정보학과) ;
  • 김민정 (성균관대학교 일반대학원 문헌정보학과)
  • Received : 2013.04.17
  • Accepted : 2013.05.21
  • Published : 2013.05.30
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Abstract

Wikipedia represents a revolutionary experiment in the sense that it allows anonymous Internet users to contribute, change, and edit Encyclopedia contents used by tens of millions of people. While a very popular information source on the Internet, because of its questionable information credibility and accuracy, citing Wikipedia articles is being regarded as a risky behavior for scholars. The present study identified 282 scholarly articles from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science citation database that cite Wikipedia at least once. Out of the millions of articles indexed in Web of Science, the proportion of articles citing Wikipedia is extremely small. On the other hand, the numbers are showing a marked increase since 2011. Wikipedia citing articles are distributed in subject areas, such as library and information science, business, psychology, education, and communication more often than in other areas. The distribution of a total of 577 citations from 267 articles for which we were able to obtain full texts shows that Wikipedia is being cited mainly in studies of Wikipedia (139 citations, 24.1%) or as a ready reference source (331 citations, 57.4%). At the same time, about 15% of total citations turned out to be cases of potentially risky behaviors in which Wikipedia is being cited as a crucial basis or data source for study.

익명의 인터넷 이용자가 백과사전의 내용을 쓰고, 수정하고, 편집을 한다는 점에서 위키피디아는 획기적인 발상이다. 위키피디아는 현재 인터넷에서 가장 빈번하게 이용되는 정보원이지만 학술연구자들은 정보의 신뢰성, 정확성의 문제 등으로 위키피디아를 학술연구에서 이용하거나 인용하는 것을 위험한 행동으로 평가하고 있다. 본 연구는 대표적인 인용색인 데이터베이스인 Thomson Reuters의 Web of Science(WoS)에서 2002년부터 2012년의 기간 동안 위키피디아를 인용하고 있는 논문 총 282개를 대상으로 특성 및 인용 패턴을 분석하였다. 위키피디아 인용논문은 비록 소수이기는 하지만 2011년을 기점으로 급격하게 증가하고 있는 추세를 보이고 있다. 가장 많은 논문이 분포한 분야는 문헌정보학, 경영학, 심리학, 교육학 및 커뮤니케이션 분야이다. 원문을 입수할 수 있는 267개 논문에 나타난 총 577개의 인용에 대한 내용분석을 통해 위키피디아에 대한 연구에서의 인용과 지식정보원으로써의 위키피디아 활용을 조사하였다. 조사 결과 총 577개의 분석 대상 인용 가운데 상당수의 인용은 위키피디아에 대한 소개, 설명(139건, 24.1%)이거나, 위키피디아의 글을 간단한 참고정보원으로 활용한 경우(331건, 57.4%)로 파악되었다. 하지만 기존에 여러 연구자들에 의해 위험한 행동으로 간주될 수 있는 위키피디아를 논문의 주요 근거 혹은 데이터 소스로 활용한 사례도 87건(15.1%)으로 조사되었다.

Keywords

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