'Wikiracing' picking up speed among college students

Wikispeedia founder and Munich native Bob West, 28, was working on a master's degree in computer science at McGill University in summer 2008 when he and his friends started Wikiracing.

At first, it was a simple diversion - until he realized that the game could provide insights into how people associate data, and he launched Wikispeedia that August to observe more closely how people played the game.

Eventually, he wrote his master's thesis on the data he collected from the website, where between 20,000 and 30,000 games have been played since its launch.

Wikiracing, he said, is a "game with a purpose" - a time-killing tool that also can provide research. In West's case, the data he gathered from Wikispeedia gives hints about how people associate words and concepts that could, for example, help improve technologies such as speech-recognition devices.

Not coincidentally, a good portion of the traffic on Wikispeedia comes from ISP addresses associated with educational institutions. Some even have used Wikiracing's popularity among the college set as a teaching tool.

David Greene, who's now the assistant director for student life at the Community College of Philadelphia, said he used Wikiracing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as part of a program that taught incoming freshmen how to conduct research for papers.

"Search games" like Wikracing, he said, were a fun way to show students how much misinformation is out there - and how easily that information can be altered. In other words, don't trust everything you read online.

But for Giordano, Wikiracing is just another way to fight school-day tedium.

"Really, I think it was just something fun to do in the computer lab when the teacher wasn't there," he said.

Contact staff writer Aubrey Whelan at 215-854-4193 or awhelan@phillynews.com.