The Online Encyclopedia of Criminal Justice

The cjencyclopedia site, also known as the Online Encyclopedia of Criminal Justice, was active between March 2005 and early 2010. The site was built by students in Dr. Kenneth Mentor's courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. As part of their class assignments, students wrote encyclopedia articles on a variety of criminal justice topics. Rather than submitting their work in the classroom, with a readership of one, students published their papers on this site.

The cjencyclopedia wiki allowed students to work collaboratively to improve their writing. Their work included writing the initial encyclopedia entry, editing current and older pages, and organizing these pages by creating a Table of Contents with links to all pages. In addition to an engsging learning experience, this project resulted in open access learning materials for students studying criminal justice.

The cjencyclopedia site was recognized as the Sloan-C “Effective Practice of the Month,” for March 2007. The site has also been mentioned in several scholarly papers focusing on student-generated content and creative learning opportunities.

Although the site was an interesting learning experience, the idea had, in many ways, run its course. It also became increasingly difficult to maintain the site given the challenges posed by spammers who relentlessly posted links to the site.

Those interested in learning more are welcome to contact ken.mentor at gmail dot com for information.