BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation). In September 2017, he was awarded the President's Medal of the British Academy "for facilitating the unfold of details by way of his operate generating and creating Wikipedia, the world's biggest cost-free on-line encyclopedia". In January 2015, Maastricht University awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa to Wales. Sanger, Larry (January 18, 2002). "What Wikipedia is and why it issues".