Wikipedia – challenges and new horizons in enhancing medical education

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Abstract

Background

Wikipedia gains growing attention as a provider of health information. This study aimed to investigate the use, relevance and challenges of Wikipedia among medical students.

Methods

An online questionnaire was made accessible to students at five medical universities in Germany, Austria, and Norway. Besides demographical data, the questions covered the role of Wikipedia in the academic life of medical students. The questionnaire investigated if the students had ever found erroneous medical entries and whether they corrected these.

Results

A frequent use of Wikipedia in general is statistically significant correlated with a frequent use in medical studies (p < 0.001). Information retrieved from Wikipedia is predominantly critically appraised either by comparing it to profound knowledge (79%) and/or to specific literature (75%). Despite most (97%) respondents disclosed that they already had found false information in Wikipedia, recognized errors were seldomly corrected (~20%).

Conclusions

The information retrieved from Wikipedia is critically appraised. However, we found shortcomings in handling erroneous entries. We argue for professional responsibility among medical students in dealing with this dynamic resource. Moreover, we encourage medical schools to supplement information to Wikipedia to further benefit from the vast possibilities of this platform.

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Most cited references 14

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Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education

Maged N Kamel Boulos, Inocencio Maramba, Steve Wheeler (2006)

Background We have witnessed a rapid increase in the use of Web-based 'collaborationware' in recent years. These Web 2.0 applications, particularly wikis, blogs and podcasts, have been increasingly adopted by many online health-related professional and educational services. Because of their ease of use and rapidity of deployment, they offer the opportunity for powerful information sharing and ease of collaboration. Wikis are Web sites that can be edited by anyone who has access to them. The word 'blog' is a contraction of 'Web Log' – an online Web journal that can offer a resource rich multimedia environment. Podcasts are repositories of audio and video materials that can be "pushed" to subscribers, even without user intervention. These audio and video files can be downloaded to portable media players that can be taken anywhere, providing the potential for "anytime, anywhere" learning experiences (mobile learning). Discussion Wikis, blogs and podcasts are all relatively easy to use, which partly accounts for their proliferation. The fact that there are many free and Open Source versions of these tools may also be responsible for their explosive growth. Thus it would be relatively easy to implement any or all within a Health Professions' Educational Environment. Paradoxically, some of their disadvantages also relate to their openness and ease of use. With virtually anybody able to alter, edit or otherwise contribute to the collaborative Web pages, it can be problematic to gauge the reliability and accuracy of such resources. While arguably, the very process of collaboration leads to a Darwinian type 'survival of the fittest' content within a Web page, the veracity of these resources can be assured through careful monitoring, moderation, and operation of the collaborationware in a closed and secure digital environment. Empirical research is still needed to build our pedagogic evidence base about the different aspects of these tools in the context of medical/health education. Summary and conclusion If effectively deployed, wikis, blogs and podcasts could offer a way to enhance students', clinicians' and patients' learning experiences, and deepen levels of learners' engagement and collaboration within digital learning environments. Therefore, research should be conducted to determine the best ways to integrate these tools into existing e-Learning programmes for students, health professionals and patients, taking into account the different, but also overlapping, needs of these three audience classes and the opportunities of virtual collaboration between them. Of particular importance is research into novel integrative applications, to serve as the "glue" to bind the different forms of Web-based collaborationware synergistically in order to provide a coherent wholesome learning experience.

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Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education.

Steve Wheeler, Kevin Hetherington, Maged Kamel Boulos (2007)

This hybrid review-case study introduces three-dimensional (3-D) virtual worlds and their educational potential to medical/health librarians and educators. Second life (http://secondlife.com/) is perhaps the most popular virtual world platform in use today, with an emphasis on social interaction. We describe some medical and health education examples from Second Life, including Second Life Medical and Consumer Health Libraries (Healthinfo Island-funded by a grant from the US National Library of Medicine), and VNEC (Virtual Neurological Education Centre-developed at the University of Plymouth, UK), which we present as two detailed 'case studies'. The pedagogical potentials of Second Life are then discussed, as well as some issues and challenges related to the use of virtual worlds. We have also compiled an up-to-date resource page (http://healthcybermap.org/sl.htm), with additional online material and pointers to support and extend this study.

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Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?

Michaël R Laurent, Tim J Vickers (2015)

OBJECTIVE To determine the significance of the English Wikipedia as a source of online health information. DESIGN The authors measured Wikipedia's ranking on general Internet search engines by entering keywords from MedlinePlus, NHS Direct Online, and the National Organization of Rare Diseases as queries into search engine optimization software. We assessed whether article quality influenced this ranking. The authors tested whether traffic to Wikipedia coincided with epidemiological trends and news of emerging health concerns, and how it compares to MedlinePlus. MEASUREMENTS Cumulative incidence and average position of Wikipedia compared to other Web sites among the first 20 results on general Internet search engines (Google, Google UK, Yahoo, and MSN, and page view statistics for selected Wikipedia articles and MedlinePlus pages. RESULTS Wikipedia ranked among the first ten results in 71-85% of search engines and keywords tested. Wikipedia surpassed MedlinePlus and NHS Direct Online (except for queries from the latter on Google UK), and ranked higher with quality articles. Wikipedia ranked highest for rare diseases, although its incidence in several categories decreased. Page views increased parallel to the occurrence of 20 seasonal disorders and news of three emerging health concerns. Wikipedia articles were viewed more often than MedlinePlus Topic (p = 0.001) but for MedlinePlus Encyclopedia pages, the trend was not significant (p = 0.07-0.10). CONCLUSIONS Based on its search engine ranking and page view statistics, the English Wikipedia is a prominent source of online health information compared to the other online health information providers studied.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Verena G Herbert: v.herbert@dermatologikum.de

Andreas Frings: a.frings@uke.de

Herwig Rehatschek: herwig.rehatschek@medunigraz.at

Gisbert Richard: richard@uke.de

Andreas Leithner: andreas.leithner@medunigraz.at

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Med Educ

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Med Educ

Title: BMC Medical Education

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6920

Publication date (Electronic): 6 March 2015

Publication date PMC-release: 6 March 2015

Publication date Collection: 2015

Volume: 15

Electronic Location Identifier: 32

Affiliations

[ ]Dermatologikum Hamburg, Stephansplatz 5, 20354 Hamburg, Germany

[ ]Department of Ophthalmology, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

[ ]Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

[ ]Department of Orthopaedics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

Article

Publisher ID: 309

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-015-0309-2

PMC ID: 4384304

PubMed ID: 25879421

SO-VID: 908d92d1-d49d-455e-8918-d048b27f334f

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 8 November 2014

Date accepted : 17 February 2015

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Education

Keywords: wikipedia,medical education,professional responsibility,evaluation of information

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Education

Keywords: wikipedia, medical education, professional responsibility, evaluation of information

Wikipedia – challenges and new horizons in enhancing medical education

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Most cited references 14

Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education

Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education.

Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?

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