Abruptum, according to Wikipedia.org, is a Swedish death-metal band formed in 1990 by three men nicknamed It, All and Ext. This information is not from a music scholar or a former member of the band, which dissolved in 2005, but from sophomore Nicolas LaBonte, a Wikipedia contributor.

LaBonte edits articles written by other registered users. This year, he contributed two articles to the site — one about Abruptum and one about an album by the band the Frogs.

LaBonte also said he likes that Wikipedia covers controversial and contemporary political issues.

“It’s very good about doing current events,” he said.

According to the Web ranking site Alexa.com, Wikipedia is the 17th most-visited site. But as students turn to the site as a research tool, professors are working to educate them about the shortcomings of the site as a scholarly resource.

The Web site, which has more than one million articles that are collaboratively written and edited, has been criticized for the informal review process. The site has three employees, but hundreds of volunteers monitor the site.

Michael Twomey, professor of English, said he looked up “Sir Gawain and the Green Night.” He talks about the medieval poem in class and has published articles about it. He said he found factual errors and misleading statements in the entry.

Twomey said he could edit the entry, but the original writer could easily change it back.

“In his mind, ‘Sir Gawain’ is his turf, and he doesn’t want anyone else messing with it,” Twomey said.

Since the editing process can become a battle of wills, Twomey said he advises his students not to rely on Wikipedia.

Last semester, David Turkon, assistant professor of anthropology, allowed his students to use Wikipedia as a source in research papers, and he said around half the students in his introductory classes did so. But now he forbids students from citing it in their bibliographies, he said.

“It needs to be approached with extreme caution as a credible source,” Turkon said.

He said the anthropology department is also working to create uniform guidelines for professors to hand out to classes about using sources for research papers. The guidelines will forbid the use of Wikipedia.

Junior Charles Suozzi said he goes to Wikipedia almost daily to read the featured articles or to do research for schoolwork.

“It’s a pretty academic Web site, so I personally am pretty trustworthy of it,” he said.

Last December, Nature magazine released a study comparing scientific articles in Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. The study showed the two sources were relatively close in accuracy: Britannica had 123 mistakes, while Wikipedia had 162.

In March, Britannica released a response criticizing the Nature study, accusing the magazine of wrongly identifying inaccuracies and including articles that are not in the encyclopedia. The magazine stood by its findings in a response to the encyclopedia. Humanities librarian Brian Saunders, who speaks to classes about Internet research and discusses Wikipedia, said it looks like a trustworthy site, but the danger is anyone can write or edit entries.

“Think about that person who lives down the corridor from you in your dorm who thinks he or she is an expert on international politics or chess or television trivia or whatever and can be sometimes so annoying,” he said.

The most prolific contributor to the site is Ottawa native Simon Pulsifer, an unemployed, 24-year-old graduate of the University of Toronto who lives at home with his parents and has written around 2,000 articles and edited around 86,000, according to the Gannett News Service.

Although academics are critical of the site, they do use it. Turkon said Wikipedia is good for a general overview of a topic, and he uses it for that purpose. Saunders also said he uses the site frequently, often to learn about the latest computer technology.

But Turkon said Wikipedia contributes to students’ inability to process more in-depth, scholarly articles.

“We tend to shoot for the summary today instead of going through and really digesting the content of a scholarly article and seeing how an argument is framed and then developed and argued,” he said. “You just don’t get that from Wikipedia.”

He said weaning students off of the site is for their own good.

“What we’re training students to do is to operate in the professional world, and Wikipedia is not part of the professional, scholarly world,” he said. “No more than is Encyclopedia Britannica.”

Brian Kravitz contributed to this article.