“(Wikipedia is a) very quick way to learn about the topic, but should not be considered a substitute for going to the primary sources,” Demaagd said.

Relying solely on Wikipedia likely would result in a limited and possibly biased view or understanding of the topic being studied, psychology professor Linda Jackson said in an e-mail.

“Students will not be exposed to the ‘full picture’ if they rely on Wikipedia exclusively,” Jackson said. “Ideally, Wikipedia should be one step in a multi-step process of acquiring information about a topic.”

Jackson said the easy accessibility and relative anonymity of Wikipedia posts also might tempt some students to plagiarize work found there and submit it as their own work, prompting some university professors to ban students from using the site as a resource altogether.

Demaagd said he was sympathetic to professors who do not allow students to use Wikipedia as a source, but said he thought the site was most useful for students to get a concise, first-level introduction to a topic.

He said in his experience, some students don’t fact check bits of information they find on Wikipedia, which is sometimes dangerous but typically accurate because of Wikipedia’s frequent checks of site content.

“I don’t think students take into account the potential errors, but I don’t think in most cases that actually makes a difference,” Demaagd said.

Kathleen Loftis, a journalism junior, said she typically uses Wikipedia when she is looking up general information on a topic and not necessarily for school. She said if she used Wikipedia for a project, she would look to other sources as well to make sure the information was correct.

“Wikipedia didn’t necessarily start off on the best foot — a lot of information was wrong and people would go on there and just change things themselves,” Loftis said. “Other sources would be more trusted.”

Though he doesn’t use Wikipedia for much more than basic information on topics and to help him pick topics he’d be interested in for his papers, criminal justice junior Tyler Soldo said Wikipedia shouldn’t be written off as a useless website.

“(Wikipedia is) not the big, bad site that everything’s completely wrong on it — they do monitor it and keep it fairly accurate,” Soldo said. “It’s not the end of the world if people refer to Wikipedia.”

Representatives from Wikipedia could not be reached for comment.