Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of California, San Francisco/Expanding WikiProject Medicine (Winter Block 3)

Admit it! You use Wikipedia extensively. Who doesn't? But do you use it for medical information? Your patients do! So if Wikipedia is the most widely used medical reference in the world, and the third most visited medical reference in the US, why not be a part of increasing the quality of reliable information there by becoming a WikiProject: Medicine editor? This course will teach you how.

Week 1
These activities will occur at Mission Hall, room 1405


 * Overview of the course
 * Introduction to how Wikipedia will be used in the course
 * Understanding Wikipedia as a community, we'll discuss its expectations and etiquette.
 * We'll talk about WikiProject Medicine, and the history of this elective at UCSF
 * Guest presentation by Jake Orlowitz about the Wikipedia Library
 * Guest presentation by Val Swisher about Translators Without Borders
 * Guest presentation by James Heilman about Wikiproject Medicine
 * Presentation by Evans &quot;Whit&quot; Whitaker about information retrieval strategies and resources available to you at UCSF

Handout: Editing Wikipedia


 * Create an account and then complete the online training for students. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.

This is where we think specifically about how editing Wikipedia as a medical student might differ from editing as a &quot;lay person.&quot;

These activities will occur at Mission Hall, room 1405

On Thurs 3/3 from 10am-noon you will informally present your work-in-progress to Amin and/or Whit. We expect you to have worked out a team work-plan itemized by each of your individual responsibilities.

By the end of the day on Fri 3/4, post your final Workplan. So that you can engage with the Wikipedian community members who are interested &amp; actively following your article, post your Workplan on the talk page of your selected Wikipedia article. Since you will all be working on the same article, I want you to be explicit about what section(s) you will individually be responsible for. Consider explicitly declaring any/all of the following:


 * Review pages 4-7 of the Evaluating Wikipedia brochure. This will give you a good, brief overview of what to look for in other articles, and what other people will look for in your own.
 * A few questions to consider (don't feel limited to these):
 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?
 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
 * Which sections will I prioritize?
 * What resources do I intend to look up, and when?
 * How will I utilize the Acrolinx report that I will get for my article?
 * How will I decide what things (signs, symptoms, side-effects, etc.) to explicitly include? To explicitly exclude?
 * Will I also embed additional links to other Wiki pages?
 * How will I ensure I avoid &quot;doctor-speak&quot; and not use jargon?

Resources: Evaluating Wikipedia,

Week 2
This is to remind you that adding images to WP articles can be just as important as adding text. Here's the general information about doing that scope of work as part of your efforts:


 * Identify an article that would benefit from illustration, create or find an appropriate photo, illustration, or audio/video, and add it to the article.
 * All media uploaded to Wikipedia must fall under a &quot;free license,&quot; which means they can be used or shared by anyone. Examples of media you can use are photos that you take yourself, images and text in the public domain, and works created by someone else who has given permission for their work to be used by others. For more information about which types of media can be uploaded to Wikipedia, see Commons:Help desk.
 * To add a media file to an article, you must first upload it to Wikimedia Commons. For instructions on how to upload files to Commons, refer to Illustrating Wikipedia. This brochure will also provide you with detailed information about which files are acceptable to upload to Wikipedia and the value of contributing media to Wikipedia articles.

These activities will occur in Mission Hall 1109

On Thurs 3/10 from 10am-noon you will informally present your work-in-progress to Amin and/or Whit. We will help troubleshoot or discuss your evolving thoughts on your work. Bring your lunch and make it an &quot;edit-a-thon!&quot;

Based on our discussions on the first two days of class, it is my expectation that by Week 2 you will be editing your selected article(s) &quot;live&quot; on Wiki and not merely in your sandboxes!

Week 3
These activities will occur in Mission Hall 1109

On Thurs 3/17 from 10am-noon you will informally present your work-in-progress to Amin and/or Whit. We will help troubleshoot or discuss your evolving thoughts on your work. Bring your lunch and make it an &quot;edit-a-thon!&quot;

Additionally, we will have a talk by a guest discussant: Fred Trotter-- an &quot;open hackivist&quot; in the healthcare space, and recipient of a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Please perform peer reviews beginning on March 11


 * Post your Review to the talk page of the article you are reviewing.
 * Aim for finishing your peer review BEFORE Friday March 18!
 * What should a peer-review look like? During our discussion in class on 3/1, we will define specific attributes we will itemize here.

How to conduct peer review? Themes/questions that emerged:


 * What framework? Limit to readability? Style? Comprehensiveness?
 * To some students feels more like arbitration by random person, to other students it’s OK, even desirable to have a peer review one’s work
 * The skill of peer review is a skill that gets better with practice
 * How to assign who reviews whose work?  Reciprocal reviews of similar article sections vs. drawing names “out of a hat?”
 * Can students declare what feedback they want peer-review on?
 * Should the review be on the talk page?  Is that too open/transparent?  Or does that allow others to build on the work after we’re done with the course?
 * How am I qualified to be conducting this peer review?  But who is more of a true peer than fellow medical students enrolled in this course?
 * Consider reviewing prior students’ declaration of intended work, as well as prior students’ peer reviews.  All can be found on the talk pages of the articles they edited and peer-reviewed. Wide range in quality, but you can find all prior cycles of the elective here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/UCSF
 * No clear consensus on how to resolve these questions, nor when this work will be completed.  But Amin will ask for updated decision(s) by next week’s WP-WIP call.

Week 4
Use the final week of the course to respond to your peer-reviewer's suggestions. Additionally:


 * Leverage the Wikipedian community members who are interested in your article
 * Consider replying to the peer review directly on the talk page of your article
 * If you disagree with your peer reviewer, explain your rationale

These activities will occur in Mission Hall 1109

On Thurs 3/24 from 10-noon we will convene for a 2 hour meeting to share accomplishments and discuss lessons learned. Final presentations will be structured as follows: round robin &quot;reports&quot; (maximum of 10 minutes each) from each of you as follows:


 * What did I accomplish this month (broad overview)?
 * What did I learn?
 * What will I take forward with me into the future?
 * Now in hindsight, is there anything I would have done differently?

We will conclude our meeting with a focus group about the elective overall. This will include:


 * Feedback about the guest consultants
 * Strategies for improvement for future cycles of the elective