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 study describes a literature review and curricular inventory of Wikipedia educational initiatives to provide an overview of current approaches and identify 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 (WikiEdu), 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 on courses offered between 2015-2019. 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 of student evaluation were available. Discussion: A small but growing number of schools are training HPE students to improve Wikipedia's medical content. Course details are available on WikiEdu dashboards and, to a lesser extent, in peer-reviewed publications. There is limited evidence of the initiatives' impacts on student learning, however, 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.

Open Pedagogy: A Systematic Review of Empirical Findings

“…One limitation of this study is that studies may be examining open pedagogy without using the "open" label. For example, editing Wikipedia articles is an example of OER-enabled pedagogy (Wiley & Hilton, 2018) and there has been research on this topic (Apollonio et al, 2018;Maggio et al, 2020;Petruccoal & Ferranti, 2020). However, these studies on student or faculty perception of editing Wikipedia articles were not couched in the concept of open pedagogy in their reports.…”

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.…”

“…We applied purposive sampling to invite instructors from a published inventory of 27 HPE courses from 2015 to 2019 that substantively integrated Wikipedia into their teaching approach. 32 The inventory represented the most current list of HPE courses that integrated Wikipedia editing into their course activities. We recruited only HPE instructors or co-instructors who had completed teaching at least 1 course with Wikipedia.…”