Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Editor outreach

Wikipedia has been losing active editors over the last few years per the editors trend study. Measures to get people involved with improving Wikipedia's medical content are needed. A number of projects are currently ongoing.

Proposals to increase participation
Efforts to encourage medical students to edit are in development. One approach involves presentations at universities around the world. ( some of which will be based on this paper ).

Collaborative publication with a journal
One concern we hear from academics is that Wikipedia gives too little of the recognition needed for tenure or advancement within one's profession. In an attempt to address this, potential collaborations with established journals in being discussed. The two journals that have expressed interest are the Journal of Medical Internet Research and PLoS Medicine. Further details can be found here and here

Adding a banner inviting people to edit
A trial of adding a banner inviting people to edit has been tested. Results are pending.

Paying editors for content
Another medical wiki (wikemerg ) has attempted to pay editors for content. The success of this approach has been limited and the cost significant. There is also a fair bit of literature which has found intrinsic motivation to be superior to extrinsic motivation.

A wikipedia Canada scholarship was offered in 2011/2012. It was open to all post secondary students. Signs were posted at a number of universities across Canada. The idea did generate some press as discussed here.

Hiring a summer student
Hiring a summer student to take care of some of the day to day management of this project may improve quality here. I have put together a draft outline of the application Summer student

Outreach to Medical School Curricular Deans
I am in discussion with the curriculum leaders at UCSF about giving medical students elective credit for editing articles. Please get in touch with me if you have any recommendations for how best to standardize quantification of an individual's contributions - a difficult task but one vital for scaling this project. User:Michaelturken

Presentations
Some general resources on presentations are at outreach:Category:Best practices documentation.


 * A presentation given at McMaster and UBC. Feel free to reuse.
 * Videos of presentations given at UBC Oct 6th, 2011
 * user:bluerasberry's presentation emphasizing traffic numbers
 * Wikimedia and Medicine: An Introduction (adapted from Doc James' version)