Wikis and Collaborative Writing Applications in Health Care: A Scoping Review

Abstract

BackgroundCollaborative writing applications (eg, wikis and Google Documents) hold the potential to improve the use of evidence in both public health and health care. The rapid rise in their use has created the need for a systematic synthesis of the evidence of their impact as knowledge translation (KT) tools in the health care sector and for an inventory of the factors that affect their use.ObjectiveThrough the Levac six-stage methodology, a scoping review was undertaken to explore the depth and breadth of evidence about the effective, safe, and ethical use of wikis and collaborative writing applications (CWAs) in health care.MethodsMultiple strategies were used to locate studies. Seven scientific databases and 6 grey literature sources were queried for articles on wikis and CWAs published between 2001 and September 16, 2011. In total, 4436 citations and 1921 grey literature items were screened. Two reviewers independently reviewed citations, selected eligible studies, and extracted data using a standardized form. We included any paper presenting qualitative or quantitative empirical evidence concerning health care and CWAs. We defined a CWA as any technology that enables the joint and simultaneous editing of a webpage or an online document by many end users. We performed qualitative content analysis to identify the factors that affect the use of CWAs using the Gagnon framework and their effects on health care using the Donabedian framework.ResultsOf the 111 studies included, 4 were experimental, 5 quasi-experimental, 5 observational, 52 case studies, 23 surveys about wiki use, and 22 descriptive studies about the quality of information in wikis. We classified them by theme: patterns of use of CWAs (n=26), quality of information in existing CWAs (n=25), and CWAs as KT tools (n=73). A high prevalence of CWA use (ie, more than 50%) is reported in 58% (7/12) of surveys conducted with health care professionals and students. However, we found only one longitudinal study showing that CWA use is increasing in health care. Moreover, contribution rates remain low and the quality of information contained in different CWAs needs improvement. We identified 48 barriers and 91 facilitators in 4 major themes (factors related to the CWA, users’ knowledge and attitude towards CWAs, human environment, and organizational environment). We also found 57 positive and 23 negative effects that we classified into processes and outcomes.ConclusionsAlthough we found some experimental and quasi-experimental studies of the effectiveness and safety of CWAs as educational and KT interventions, the vast majority of included studies were observational case studies about CWAs being used by health professionals and patients. More primary research is needed to find ways to address the different barriers to their use and to make these applications more useful for different stakeholders.

Emergency medicine residents’ beliefs about contributing to an online collaborative slideshow

“…In order to compare the study results to those of similar studies, labels from a validated taxonomy of social media adoption determinants were used. 11,44 Each belief was ranked from most to least frequently mentioned. The top 75th percentile of most frequently cited beliefs were considered "salient" in keeping with TPB methodology.…”

“…9 Collaborative writing applications (CWAs) are a category of social media that allows multiple authors to contribute synchronously and asynchronously to a single document. 10,11 New CWAs, such as Google Docs TM and wikis, are rapidly gaining popularity in medical education because they support free and open collaboration and decentralize content production. 4,7,9,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Constructivist learning principles support the use of social media in medical education.…”

“…22 Three recent systematic reviews found that social media improved skill acquisition, knowledge retention, student satisfaction, and teacher supervision. 11,23,24 A scoping review of the literature, 11 focused specifically on CWAs, found three randomized trials [25][26][27] and concluded that CWAs had positive effects on scientific writing skills, leadership skills, and problem-based learning processes. However, low contribution rates have been found to be a major obstacle to CWA use in medical education.…”

“…However, low contribution rates have been found to be a major obstacle to CWA use in medical education. 11,23,28,29 This is a common problem with CWAs: for example, 44% of all contributions to Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, USA) are made by 0.1% of editors. 30,31 This contribution process has been described as a "long tail" distribution, whereby a large number of people make small contributions.…”

Taking Constructivism One Step Further: Post Hoc Analysis of a Student-Created Wiki (Preprint)

“…There is a growing body of literature on the use of wikis in education and many researchers have recently published specifically within medical education [10]. A recent review article examining the use of wikis in medical education concluded that it has significant potential but is not yet well-studied [11].…”