Presentation by Wyeth W. Wasserman, PhD Senior Scientist, CMMT, CFRI, UBC Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, UBC at Thinking Session III: Open Platforms for Open Education during EDUCamp 2010: Sustainability Education last March 18, 2010.

1. Wiki-based Gene Reports
in Medical Genetics 421
Wyeth Wasserman
Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics
Child and Family Research Institute
Department of Medical Genetics

2. Medical Genetics 421
• ~35 advanced undergraduate students
– Most destined for graduate school in life
sciences or medical school
• High demand for long awaited return of course led
to student population with history of high
performance
– Essentially an honours class
– Students are uniformly aware of Wikipedia,
but few (3-4 on average) have previously
contributed/modified an entry

3. Course Format
• Lecture-based
• Classical – sit, listen and ask questions
• 75% of lectures by “guest” specialists
• Marks
• 50% non-comprehensive exams (2)
• 25% paper summaries (10)
» 1 page summaries of primary scientific
literature
• 18% cancer gene report developed in
MediaWiki
» Extra credit for top reports if posted to
Wikipedia
• 7% for team-based gene network MediaWiki
report (combines the “related” genes)

4. MediaWiki Training
• Critical to introduce the
MediaWiki software to the
students
– Sample for key formats given
• http://www.cisreg.ca/medg421/wiki/index.php/User:Jlim
– Dedicated 30 minute tutorial early
in the term
• Walk the students through creation of
a page
• http://www.cisreg.ca/medg421/wiki/index.php/Medg421:Protected_page

5. Medg421 Wikipedia Gene Reports
• Course wiki
• http://www.cisreg.ca/medg421/wiki/index.php/Category:Genes
• Example of Wikipedia Posting (extra
credit)
• Deleted in Liver Cancer 1 (DLC1)
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLC1
Image from the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project. http://cgap.nci.nih.gov/Pathways/BioCarta/h_egfPathway

6. Observations
• Students expressed surprising enthusiasm for
the project
• Many students put in far greater effort than
required for a good mark
• Led to word count limits in recent year
• Provided continuity with the wide range of
cancer processes addressed in class
• The relationship of „their gene‟ to the theme of the week kept
the students engaged
• In the initial year, students only did individual
project; better experience when combining their
efforts led to gene network extension

7. Observations (2)
• Difficult to grade
• Limit length
• Content vs utility (keep students focused on useful
information)
• History logs reviewed to assess team project
contributions (a better system would be nice)
• Exposes lack of understanding
• Hard to grade (~30 minutes each). Team
projects for larger classes would be best.

8. Lessons Learned
• Word Limits!
• Keeps students focused
• Revisions necessary to cover required information in allowed
space
• Plagiarism tutorial
• Some students seemed to think that the wiki-format was
open license to copy text without attribution
• More explicit requirements
• Incorporating more hyperlinks
• Create a summary figure
• Limit selection of topics (genes)
• Group projects require sets of related genes

9. What‟s Next ?
• Collaborative wiki projects with cancer
biology classes at other institutions
• Open-textbook and instructional materials
developed in global partnership
• Popular text books, but not frequently updated
• Under consideration: student multi-media
reports to introduce cancer concepts