Wikipedia as a gateway to biomedical research: The relative distribution and use of citations in the English Wikipedia

Abstract

Wikipedia is a gateway to knowledge. However, the extent to which this gateway ends at Wikipedia or continues via supporting citations is unknown. Wikipedia’s gateway functionality has implications for information design and education, notably in medicine. This study aims to establish benchmarks for the relative distribution and referral (click) rate of citations—as indicated by presence of a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)—from Wikipedia, with a focus on medical citations. DOIs referred from the English Wikipedia in August 2016 were obtained from Crossref.org. Next, based on a DOI’s presence on a WikiProject Medicine page, all DOIs in Wikipedia were categorized as medical (WP:MED) or non-medical (non-WP:MED). Using this categorization, referred DOIs were classified as WP:MED, non-WP:MED, or BOTH, meaning the DOI may have been referred from either category. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Out of 5.2 million Wikipedia pages, 4.42% (n = 229,857) included at least one DOI. 68,870 were identified as WP:MED, with 22.14% (n = 15,250) featuring one or more DOIs. WP:MED pages featured on average 8.88 DOI citations per page, whereas non-WP:MED pages had on average 4.28 DOI citations. For DOIs only on WP:MED pages, a DOI was referred every 2,283 pageviews and for non-WP:MED pages every 2,467 pageviews. DOIs from BOTH pages accounted for 12% (n = 58,475). The referral of DOI citations found in BOTH could not be assigned to WP:MED or non-WP:MED, as the page from which the referral was made was not provided with the data. While these results cannot provide evidence of greater citation referral from WP:MED than non-WP:MED, they do provide benchmarks to assess strategies for changing referral patterns. These changes might include editors adopting new methods for designing and presenting citations or the introduction of teaching strategies that address the value of consulting citations as a tool for extending learning.

Situating Wikipedia as a health information resource in various contexts: A scoping review

“…Bibliometric studies (S5 Appendix, Table 9) have been used to assess whether Wikipedia is cited in academic literature and its influence on the popularity of, or access to, high-impact journals, or to measure article impact. Wikipedia is positioned as a key alternative resource for the measurement of journal or article impact [79], to identify influential medical journals [80], or to act as a "gateway" to traditionally published health research, given that approximately 69% of the articles cited in Wikipedia's health content are reviews, a highly valued source of evidence [81,82]. These studies also assert that a major value of Wikipedia is its curated list of published articles, many of which are cited in Wikipedia within days, but at most months, of publication [79,80].…”

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

“…For example, critical appraisal, the process of systematically judging research for trustworthiness and relevance to a particular context [ 55 ], is often taught using traditional approaches, such as journal clubs, that can seem disconnected from patient care. In contrast, the authentic experience of editing pages to be viewed by potentially thousands of readers is an intrinsically motivating approach to EBM [ 13 , 56 ]. However, a minority of courses explicitly referenced EBM, while the vast majority taught one or more EBM skills, speaking to a missed opportunity to make a direct link.…”

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

“…Editing Wikipedia’s medical content requires editors to first interpret biomedical literature and second translate it into plain language interpretable across a spectrum of health literacy levels. These communication skills are similar to those that health professionals must use when sharing information with patients, skills which when effectively deployed have been shown to impact medical outcomes, safety, and patient satisfaction [56]. Several courses embedded health communication content.…”