Integrating Wikipedia editing into health professions education: a curricular inventory and review of the literature

Abstract

Introduction Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia read by millions seeking medical information. To provide health professions students with skills to critically assess, edit, and improve Wikipedia’s medical content, a skillset aligned with evidence-based medicine (EBM), Wikipedia courses have been integrated into health professions schools’ curriculum. This literature review and curricular inventory of Wikipedia educational initiatives provides an overview of current approaches and identifies directions for future initiatives and research. Methods Five databases were searched for articles describing educational interventions to train health professional students to edit Wikipedia. Course dashboards, maintained by Wiki Education (Wiki Edu), were searched for curricular materials. From these sources, key details were extracted and synthesized, including student and instructor type, course content, educational methods, and student outcomes. Results Six articles and 27 dashboards reported courses offered between 2015 and 2019. Courses were predominantly offered to medical and nursing students. Instructors delivered content via videos, live lectures, and online interactive modules. Course content included logistics of Wikipedia editing, EBM skills, and health literacy. All courses included assignments requiring students to edit Wikipedia independently or in groups. Limited details on assessment of student learning were available. Discussion A small but growing number of schools are training health professions education students to improve Wikipedia’s medical content. Course details are available on Wiki Edu dashboards and, to a lesser extent, in peer-reviewed publications. While more needs to be done in conducting and sharing assessment of student learning, integrating Wikipedia into health professions education has potential to facilitate learning of EBM and communication skills, improve Wikipedia’s online content, and engage students with an autonomous environment while learning. Future considerations should include a thorough assessment of student learning and practices, a final review of student edits to ensure they follow Wikipedia’s guidelines and are written in clear language, and improved sharing of teaching resources by instructors.

Enculturating a Community of Action: Health Professions Educators’ Perspectives on Teaching With Wikipedia

“…15 More recently, an inventory of Wikipedia courses aimed at health professions students identified 27 curricular offerings, ranging from course assignments to complete courses on Wikipedia editing. 16 However, tensions still exist over Wikipedia as a trustworthy information source and whether the academic community should promote its use in their classrooms, with some students and instructors relegated to using Wikipedia as a "guilty secret. " 17 Indeed, the use of Wikipedia as a classroom tool has evoked negative reactions, particularly within institutions of higher education.…”

Wikipedia in Health Professional Schools: from an Opponent to an Ally

“…Teaching students to contribute to Wikipedia provides excellent opportunities for students to develop evidence-based medicine skills [ 24 – 26 ]. Notably, there are a myriad of ways to deliver these courses to the audience, including live sessions, videos, and online interactive platforms, any/all of which can be delivered both in person and remotely [ 25 ]. The target audience varies from 1st-year students to professionals, and different faculty adapt the methodology to their local institutional environment, as shown in Table 2 .…”

Enculturating a Community of Action (CoA): A qualitative study of health professions educators’ perspectives on teaching with Wikipedia

“…This study recruited 17 instructors in a purposive sampling that drew on an inventory of existing HPE courses that substantively integrated Wikipedia into their teaching approach. 22 PCM initiated the first round of recruitment to potential participants and scheduled interviews with consenting instructors via email. After the first wave of interviews, the research team convened to review the range of recruited participants and the corresponding data collected to maximize the range of institutional roles and disciplines of HPE instructors recruited in the second wave of emails.…”

“…9 A recent inventory of Wikipedia courses aimed at health professions students identified 30 curricular offerings ranging from course assignments to complete courses. 10 The first reported use of Wikipedia in 2012 was a neuroscience course in which students edited Wikipedia as a course assignment. 11 Later, Azzam et al 13 described the first for-credit medical course fully dedicated to editing and writing medical articles on Wikipedia.…”