MedEdPublish (May 2020)
Learning through Osmosis: A global Wikipedia editing course for medical students
Abstract
Problem: Wikipedia is a ubiquitous source of information for patients, medical students and junior doctors alike. This is despite medical educators discouraging students from Wikipedia as a source of medical information. Intervention: To address this disconnect, Osmosis' Director of Open Learning Initiatives created a novel Wikipedia-editing course structured to leverage the global network of Osmosis-subscribing students. The course was entirely video-conference based and lasted 4 weeks in July 2019. Students typically worked on an article by themselves though one article was selected by two students. Towards the end of the course, each student peer-reviewed another student's edited article. Outcomes: Twelve medical students, from 11 different medical schools across 3 different continents, enrolled in the course and 11 articles were assigned. A total of 8,775 words and 119 higher quality references were added whilst 35 lower-quality references were removed. An exit survey showed students had increased confidence in their ability to contribute to Wikipedia. Students also enjoyed collaborating with a global diversity of peers. Lessons Learned: Numerous students wished that the course had a longer duration. A couple students recommended more groupwork to be incorporated into the course. The global nature of the course meant that time zones proved a challenge to scheduling. Conclusion: Decentralized courses can leverage the large user bases of medical education companies, such as Osmosis, to teach students analytical approaches to online resources as well as improve the quality of publicly available health information on Wikipedia.
