| Title |
Why Medical Schools Should Embrace Wikipedia
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Academic medicine, September 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1097/acm.0000000000001381 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Amin Azzam, David Bresler, Armando Leon, Lauren Maggio, Evans Whitaker, James Heilman, Jake Orlowitz, Valerie Swisher, Lane Rasberry, Kingsley Otoide, Fred Trotter, Will Ross, Jack D. McCue |
| Abstract |
Most medical students use Wikipedia as an information source, yet medical schools do not train students to improve Wikipedia or use it critically. Between November 2013 and November 2015, the authors offered fourth-year medical students a credit-bearing course to edit Wikipedia. The course was designed, delivered, and evaluated by faculty, medical librarians, and personnel from WikiProject Medicine, Wikipedia Education Foundation, and Translators Without Borders. The authors assessed the effect of the students' edits on Wikipedia's content, the effect of the course on student participants, and readership of students' chosen articles. Forty-three enrolled students made 1,528 edits (average 36/student), contributing 493,994 content bytes (average 11,488/student). They added higher-quality and removed lower-quality sources for a net addition of 274 references (average 6/student). As of July 2016, none of the contributions of the first 28 students (2013, 2014) have been reversed or vandalized. Students discovered a tension between comprehensiveness and readability/translatability, yet readability of most articles increased. Students felt they improved their articles, enjoyed giving back "specifically to Wikipedia," and broadened their sense of physician responsibilities in the socially networked information era. During only the "active editing months," Wikipedia traffic statistics indicate that the 43 articles were collectively viewed 1,116,065 times. Subsequent to students' efforts, these articles have been viewed nearly 22 million times. If other schools replicate and improve on this initiative, future multi-institution studies could more accurately measure the effect of medical students on Wikipedia, and vice versa.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 96 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 32 | 33% |
| United Kingdom | 13 | 14% |
| Canada | 8 | 8% |
| Germany | 2 | 2% |
| France | 2 | 2% |
| Pakistan | 1 | 1% |
| Ecuador | 1 | 1% |
| South Africa | 1 | 1% |
| Mexico | 1 | 1% |
| Other | 8 | 8% |
| Unknown | 27 | 28% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 52 | 54% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 26 | 27% |
| Scientists | 13 | 14% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 5 | 5% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 91 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 91 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | 15 | 16% |
| Librarian | 11 | 12% |
| Other | 8 | 9% |
| Student > Bachelor | 8 | 9% |
| Student > Master | 8 | 9% |
| Other | 23 | 25% |
| Unknown | 18 | 20% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 29 | 32% |
| Social Sciences | 11 | 12% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 5 | 5% |
| Psychology | 4 | 4% |
| Linguistics | 3 | 3% |
| Other | 17 | 19% |
| Unknown | 22 | 24% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 242. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 February 2024.
All research outputs
#157,262
of 25,715,849 outputs
Outputs from Academic medicine
#34
of 6,833 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,090
of 331,978 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Academic medicine
#2
of 81 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,715,849 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,833 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 81 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.