5 areas where Wikipedia can change the world

1. WikiOpen
Encyclopedia, health, research, education, & community
@JakeOrlowitz

2. Wikipedia’s mission
Imagine a world in which every person on
the planet shares in the sum of all human
knowledge.
(for free, in the language of their choice)

3. Wikipedia’s scale
30m articles, 4m English
16 million images
8000 views per second
500 million unique visitors per month
2 billion edits, 700 million English edits

4. Wikimedia’s scope
286 languages
18 projects
...images, data, dictionary, travel guide,
species, quotes, books, source material, wiki
software

5. Wikipedia’s volunteers
20 million registered users
80,000 active users
1,400 administrators
… working for free, with no central control

6. Wikipedia’s Foundation
San Francisco
200 employees
Donor funded
Non-profit
No-ads!

7. Wikipedia’s pillars
Neutral point of view
Verifiability
Consensus
Civility
Open copyright

8. Wikipedia’s reliability
As good as Britannica
Errors fixed quickly over time
Virtual filter
Many eyeballs make all bugs shallow

9. An early study in the journal Nature said that in 2005,
Wikipedia scientific articles came close to the level of
accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar
rate of "serious errors".[2]
Between 2008 and 2012, articles in medical and scientific
fields such as pathology,[5]
toxicology,[6]
oncology,[7]
pharmaceuticals,[8]
and psychiatry[9]
comparing Wikipedia
to professional and peer-reviewed sources found that
Wikipedia's depth and coverage were of a high
standard.

10. 180,000 articles globally
30,000 English
5 billion pageviews per year
> WHO, NIH, WebMD, or UpToDate
Wikipedia in Medicine

12. 50% to 90% of physicians use Wikipedia
35 to 70% of pharmacists use Wikipedia
Most frequently used source by junior MDs
94% of medical students use Wikipedia
Clinical usage

13. Wikipedia use [high] amongst medical students
Wikipedia is increasingly being used by medical students and physicians when actively searching for health information
(Judd & Kennedy 2010).
There is increasing evidence about its reliability and potential use (Rajagopalan et al. 2011).
Wikipedia was used by 341 students (94%) while studying medicine. The most common reasons reported for using Wikipedia
were ease of access (98%) and ease of understanding (95%).
there was a significant correlation between the year of medical school and the use of Wikipedia as the first resource (R2
=
0.81, p < 0.02)
The use of Wikipedia is almost ubiquitous throughout medical school for medical education.
Medical school administrators would benefit from embracing and developing web2.0 resources and include their use in
ongoing dynamic medical education.

14. Doctors use, but don’t rely totally on, Wikipedia
Use of Wikipedia for medical information is almost universal among a sample of doctors. Many of them praise its accuracy,
but they are aware of its faults and that it needs to be read critically. Ninety percent said they look up medical information on Wikipedia,
citing its ease of access and clear, concise layout among its advantages.
Among those who denied using it, some commented that they only used Wikipedia for background knowledge: in other
words, they were using it.
Stressed that they never base clinical decisions on Wikipedia alone. They saw it as a starting point, to be read critically and
consulted alongside other sources.
“I use Wikipedia to gain a quick overview of a subject/topic that I am unfamiliar with or to jolt my memory of a subject. I
would never base management or treatment of a patient I find there – for that I use my own knowledge, hospital protocols/guidelines,
textbooks and advice from colleagues.”

15. Is Wikipedia...
Peer Reviewed?

16. 1. Edit Filter automatically rejects known vandalism patterns
2. ClueBot reverts and flags suspicious edits with a machine-learning bot
3. Humans review malicious changes tagged with language recognition tools
4. Vandalism patterns are checked against metadata and historical trends
5. Recent changes patrollers scroll through new edits
6. Editors alerted to each change on all pages in their article watchlist
7. Specialists and experts report and fix mistakes when they see them
8. Millions of readers identify and correct errors when they come upon them
9. Link blacklists lock out known spam sites and unreliable sources
10. Detection mechanisms to determine conflict of interest
11. Administrators to block disruptive editors and protect pages
Multiple safeguards

17. References... References...

18. WP:MEDRS

19. Featured / Good articles
Post-publication informal crowdsourced peer review
Semi-formal peer review
Total: 4000 FAs and 18,000 GAs
Medicine: 58 FAs and 145 GAs (<1% )
Frequently written by experts
Primarily by one or by a few people
More formal peer review and author credit?

20. Who Are We Writing For?

21. The General Population
Both academics and the lay public
Simple language where possible, no jargon
Main articles are an overview
Sub articles can contain detail (nesting)
General public doesn’t care about Conf. Interval

22. Health Information for All

23. Translation needed
Problem
Little health content exists in many languages
Factor
Majority of research written in English
Solution
Translate from English to other languages

25. Translation goals
80-100 key health care articles > 2,000 pages of text
Improve to a professional standard in English
Translate into as many other languages as possible,
including simple English
Integrate the translations into Wikipedia
Give easy and free access via collaborations
with cell phone companies (Wikipedia Zero)

26. Translation partners
Translators Without Borders
NGO founded in 1993 for
Humanitarian translation
WikiProject Medicine
Wikipedians interested in
improving medical content
Wiki Project Med

27. Global impact
Tens of thousands die for lack of low cost interventions
Access to information is a major factor (HIFA2015)
8 of 10 caregivers do not know the key
symptoms of pneumonia
4 of 10 mothers in India believe fluids should
be withheld if their child has diarrhea
60% of Africans said a life close to them
could have been saved with information
in their language

28. The Library Connection
WP Only as good as our sources
Libraries have the best sources
Wikipedia has the most eyeballs
Connect a circle of research and dissemination

29. The Wikipedia Library
Gain access to paywalled sources
Facilitate research for editors
Connect with libraries
Lead to free and local sources
Promote open access

30. Access donations
Credo Reference
HighBeam Research
Questia Online Library
JSTOR
The Cochrane Library
...NYT, Oxford, Wiley, LexisNexis?

31. Thinking big
What if every publisher donated
free access to the 1000 most active
Wikipedians in that subject area?

32. Wikipedia Visiting Scholars
Academic tradition
Research affiliates
Unpaid, remote positions
Full access to collections
Liason to Wikipedia’s community

33. Thinking big
What if every library or research institution
had one Wikipedia on staff to access their
collections and build the encyclopedia?

34. University partnership
Institutional donation
5 -10 thousand editors
Subscription license
High cost
Technical implementation (OAuth)

35. Thinking big
The Wikipedia Library
Powered by Stanford??

36. Fulfillment tool
OCLC Pilot
IP affiliation
Proxy Resolver
Open URL
University initiative

37. Thinking big
What if every reference in a Wikipedia article
had the link to the full text source next to it?

38. Resource exchange
WP:RX
Fair use
Academic sharing
Global
OA Button

39. Thinking big
What if any editor anywhere in the
world could be given a fair-use, full-text
copy of the source they need?

40. OA signalling

41. Thinking big
What if every reference in a Wikipedia article
tagged whether it was free to read or reuse?

42. Wikipedia, Libraries = natural allies
Wikipedia is the starting point for research
We lead readers back to sources at libraries
So they can think critically about subjects

43. Wikipedia in the classroom
● Engaged students global audience, realworld purpose
● Unique assignment peer feedback, cool and different
● Media literacy identify bias, evaluate credibility
● Constructing knowledge content gaps
● Discourse collaboration, community of practice
● Expository writing literature review, citation
● Critical thinking process reflection
● Plagiarism close paraphrasing, copyright
● Digital citizenship online etiquette, wiki code

44. Education Program
Started with 2010 Public Policy Initiative
20,000 printed pages
6,000 Wikipedia articles
Increasing participation
Increasing quality

50. Wikipedia Ambassadors

53. Inviting diversity
a playful approach to broaden our community

54. The challenge
technical, social, policy hurdles
complex, unguided environment
quick, sometimes rude people/bots
intense debates
public and impersonal exchanges
Wikipedia’s culture can seem...
complicated, inaccessible, and intimidating

55. Can we change the tone to encourage diverse
contributors to join our communities?
This doesn’t help attract diversity

56. Strategy: Invitation
Some people won’t jump in until they’re asked
Invitation makes us feel welcome and
supported
It begins creating a sense of belonging

59. Being recognized validates experience
Acknowledgement encourages engaging
Positive feedback connects you to people you
work with
Strategy: Acknowledgement

62. Seeing faces gives a sense of human community
Allows us to imagine ourselves becoming part of
something together
Empathy is encouraged by visual cues
Strategy: Showing people

64. Play lowers the fear of failure
Allows us to try new things and make mistakes
Can help us do serious things more, because we
enjoy them
Strategy: Playful design

65. IdeaLab is an incubator for Wikimedia-
related ideas.
As much as we want to know your idea
for a better hat to deflect alien mind-rays, remember to
tell us how your idea improves a Wikimedia website or
makes contributing easier for Wikimedia volunteers.

67. Experimental impact
TH new editors have...
1.7x longer user retention
2x more articles edited
3.2x more female editors
sample of women
started editing more
after WWC launched

68. Experimental impact
The Wikipedia Adventure
● 20% more edits than a noninvited control group
● 90% more edits than invited nonplayers
● 320% more edits by game finishers
● 20 - 70%, players more likely to make 20+ edits
● 290%, finishers more likely to make 20+ edits

69. CC-BY-SA 4.0, Images from Wikimedia Commons
Jake Orlowitz
User:Ocaasi
@JakeOrlowitz
jorlowitz@gmail.com
Wikimedia Foundation Grants
Wiki Project Med Foundation
The Wikipedia Library
The Wikipedia Adventure
FunIsSrsBsnss Productions