TOP TOOLS
Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the biggest multi-national free content encyclopedia in the world. It has been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world and the vast majority of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet.

Comments from those who selected Wikipedia as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2008

• "Excellent, accessible and accurate. Another starting point for web research." Karl Goddard
• "Often top of the list when searching a topic on Google, Wikipedia has all the bases covered" Rich Chetwynd
• "More and more the easiest way to find a piece of factual" Simply brilliant one stop, free, reference source for nearly everything on the planet. The quality & accuracy of the content is maturing everyday." Jack Chapman
•  information. I use a lot of materials from the Wikimedia Commons in most things that I create."  Hans de Zwart
• "The collective encyclopedia where I look whenever I need to know more about something"  Guy Boulet
• "I look up things in the ultimate of encyclopedias several times per week. Amazing example of a community coming together to make the world a better place."  Heather Ross
• "reference. The link from my searches I'm most likely to select when I want a definitive answer"  Clark Quinn
• "A starting point and ending point for most of the things I research."  Janet Clarey
• "it's where I start. For everything."  Michelle Gallen
• "Great place to find almost anything here"  Manish Mohan
• "A free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software"  Jose Carlos del Arco
• "Who needs to write a glossary anymore in an online course? By default, I always send my students to wikipedia now."  Daniel Lemire
• "Gets better all the time when it come to reliability and content. Can't imagine a web without it anymore."  Edwin Mijnsbergen
• "Wikipedia is now maturing to an extent that you can rely its content as much as you can on edited and proofed traditional encyclopaedias."  Charles Jennings
• "For all the criticism levelled against it; it is a brilliant source of information."  Jason Denys
• "What can you say? Simply amazing. Flawed to be sure, but that is the nature of beast. You just have to know when to trust what is there and when to get second opinions. I sometimes use Wikipedia as a first source for info, before doing a Google search. And a hat-tip goes to MediaWiki too, the software that runs Wikipedia (and that I've used for corporate wikis as well)."  Thomas Stone
• "Has become a backbone for personal learning and research. From personal interests to unknown acronyms it is the first place I look to search for information"  Rebecca Jones
• "To get accurate up-to-date information on any number of topics that I do not know about." Benjamin Hamilton
• "It’s just a great reference site."  Karen Ver
• "Just about any small piece of information I need can be found on wikipedia."  Mark Schumann
• "I use this for college research purposes"  Karen OBrien
• "The best starting point for entering a new topic. Whether the content is right or wrong it's sure to get you engaged and developing your own understanding quickly."  Andrew Middleton
• "If I ever need a quick quip of information on - anything really - I can search Wiki and get exactly what I need."  Adam Kosh
• "My students use this as a starting point for a lot of their research.  I often do too."  Kris Stanhope