Despite efforts made by supporters of Penn State Wiki, the university does not support the project -- and will not permit it to appear on the Penn State Web site.

Penn State Wiki was proposed as a forum where students could post and edit information about organizations, faculty, courses and other pertinent information about the university.

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said that students are welcome to go to any third-party Internet provider for creating such a site, but the project runs a "risk of false information going out to too many people before it can be corrected."

Kendig added the university has a "certain respect for fact checking and the truth" and a "responsibility to maintaining accurate information" on Penn State's Web site.

"It doesn't make any sense for us to support a project like that," he said.

However, Information Technology Services (ITS) spokeswoman Robin Anderson said ITS is still discussing the launch of Penn State Wiki using Penn State Web space, just without the support of university administrators.

Academic Assembly faculty senator for the Eberly College of Science, George Chriss, who is the founder of Penn State Wiki, sent two different letters to university relations as well as one letter to the Division of Student Affairs defending his project.

He added that it is not a standoff between him and the university, but rather a reaction to a new idea.

"It's a new idea that catches some people off guard; wikis are a revolution waiting to happen," Chriss said.

Philip Burlingame, associate vice president of Student Affairs, has spoken with Chriss and said there are interesting applications of wikis in classes and in other places; however, he said it is not something that Student Affairs wishes to support. "Even though it posits itself as self-correcting technology, erroneous information can be put forward," he said.

Burlingame said Web sites like www.ratemyprofessor.com also allow students to evaluate professors and are "inaccurate" and "unsubstantiated." Students can go on and anonymously write anything they want, even if they have no experience with the professor, which can be misleading and is definitely unfair.

However, Burlingame said an advantage of Penn State Wiki is that users must log in with their Penn State Access Account ID, an authentication tool also used for Webmail and eLion.

Chriss has also founded the Wiki Group for anyone interested in Wikimedia Foundation projects, the Penn State Wiki and social aspects of wiki technology.

The first Wiki Group meeting will occur at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 23 in 116 Osmond.