"Evaluating the Accuracy of User Contributed Content "
Zachary Kurmas
Grand Valley State University

March 27 , 2008 11:00 AM
Van Zoeren 142

Wikipedia is an "on-line encyclopedia that anyone can edit". As a
result, Wikipedia can be updated quickly, and can cover many more
topics in a cost-effective manner than a traditional encyclopedia. The
tradeoff is that this openness also allows for inaccuracies, both
intentional and unintentional.  Estimating the quality and/or accuracy
of Wikipedia is very challenging --- especially when including
controversial topics such as evolution.

Our idea is to build a Wikipedia-like database that contains objective
facts only.  In particular, the database will contain the inflections
and conjugations of languages such as Polish and Russian.  When
complete, this database will allow us to see how often, and under what
circumstances, errors enter a user-editable database.  Secondly, it
will provide a framework for evaluating potential algorithms for
estimating the accuracy of a particular entries.  Finally, it will
become a learning resource for students of languages with complex
grammatical rules.

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