(AUBURN, Ala.) – Wikipedia, a free Internet-based encyclopedia, has grown immensely during the past few years. With nearly 1.5 million articles in its English version, the user-run encyclopedia is making its way to college students who are using it as a research tool for class assignments. However, some professors doubt Wikipedia’s credibility as an information search engine.

“I think it varies as to what the professors do or don’t like,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia. “By and large, we get overwhelmingly positive responses from most professors,” he said. “There are a few (who don’t like it), but I think the real key is using Wikipedia appropriately as you would use any other resource appropriately.”

Time Magazine named Wales to its “Top 100,” an annual list of the most influential people in the world. Wales graduated from Auburn University with a bachelor’s degree in finance before moving on to the University of Alabama for his master’s degree in finance.

Wikipedia started from scratch and is run by volunteers who submit roughly 6,000 articles a day. Because 3,500 are deleted immediately for various reasons, Wales estimates only 1,000 survive to be added.

Wikipedia’s reliability and credibility is often a topic of debate because users don’t have to register with the site or need any special qualifications to edit articles or create their own.

Judith Sheppard, associate professor of the department communication and journalism, said she doubts Wikipedia’s legitimacy.

“That automatically says to me there’s no quality to it at all. Why would anyone trust this?” Sheppard said. “I’ve seen some pretty good stuff (on Wikipedia),” Sheppard said. “I’ve seen some things that looked like they were submitted by experts – everything seemed pretty accurate in most cases. But ‘most’ doesn’t cut it when you’re looking for a research tool or a source.”

Sheppard told students in her advanced reporting class not to use Wikipedia as a source because she believes it is not trustworthy.

In December 2005, the science journal “Nature” compared Wikipedia with Encyclopedia Britannica. The journal used scientists to compare some of the two encyclopedias’ articles on natural sciences. The journal concluded that the “difference in accuracy was not particularly great,” although Britannica is now debating the validity of the study.

Benjamin Arnberg, an English and political science major, said he doesn’t use Wikipedia as a direct source for papers, but he uses it to get a better general idea on topics.

“I’ve used it to guide myself in the right direction to gain better understanding of the concept,” Arnberg said. “I’ve never actually directly quoted it in a paper, or used it as a direct source for research.”

Arnberg estimates that Wikipedia is “70 percent reliable” but not specific enough. “I wouldn’t use it for anything highly important,” he said.

Sheppard said she sees the enjoyment in Wikipedia, but still wouldn’t rely on it as a credible source. “I consider (Wikipedia) fun but never anything I would rely on for journalistic work where I’d be held to the fire for having inaccuracy in my sources,” Sheppard said.

When someone goes to Wikipedia and begins to put up false information, another user has to see it before it is changed. “It’s an open community. There are several, hundreds really, active users that are constantly monitoring the site,” Wales said.

According to Wales, when someone begins posting malicious things on pages, Wikipedia blocks that person’s IP address — a number used to identify specific computers — and that person can no longer post information on the site.

“It’s really not much of a problem,” Wales said. “Most people don’t do malicious things. People may goof around once or twice, but in terms of really, full-scale malicious entries, that’s very rare.”

Aside from Wikipedia, Wales has created a new project that only universities can access. The project, which is now up and running on the Internet, is called “Students Wikia,” where students at universities gather online to submit articles.