Grants:Project/Rapid/Expanding medical student editing Wikipedia electives into Sackler School of Medicine

statusFunded
Expanding Wikipedia-editing into another medical school
This project attempts to launch a new medical school course designed around editing Wikiproject Medicine pages
targetWikiproject Medicine
start dateSeptember 4
end dateNovember 1
budget (local currency)$1167
budget (USD)$1167
grant typeindividual
contact(s)• Amin.Azzam@ucsf.edu


Please see the sample Meeting application before drafting your application.

Project Goal

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  1. Launch a new medical school course focusing on editing Wikipedia's health related content
  2. Recruit new editors
  3. Increase skills for existing editors
  4. Add or improve content

Project Plan

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Activities

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  1. What is the purpose of the meeting and why is it important to your community?
    In partnership with Wikiproject Medicine, the Wiki Education Foundation, and the Translation Task Force, since fall 2013, Amin Azzam, MD, MA (on Wikipedia as user:AminMDMA) has had an elective course at UCSF School of Medicine for medical students to improve Wikipedia's health-related content. More information available on our wiki page here. Similarly, since October 2013, Shani Evenstein (on Wikipedia as user Esh77) has had a similar Wikipedia-editing elective course at Tel Aviv University for students to improve Hebrew Wikipedia. More information on their wiki page here.
    Beginning in fall 2017, the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University will launch a 2-year elective course on editing Wikipedia specifically for American & Canadian medical students studying at Sackler. Bringing Amin as the keynote speaker to launch the course will inspire a new round of medical students to fully engage in the Wikiproject Medicine community. Conveniently, immediately prior to the launch of the new course, he will be finishing a Wiki-related presentation at the Association of Medical Educators in Europe (AMEE) annual meeting.
  2. If applicable, what benefits have you seen from doing this kind of meeting in the past?
    During several of the 7 cycles of the UCSF medical school course between 2013 - 2017, we have brought James Heilman, MD (on Wikipedia as user DocJames) as a guest speaker to launch those courses. The in person presence of a physician-wikipedian has successfully motivated the medical students to work harder, and provides an opportunity to share best-practices, lessons-learned,etc.
  3. How will you let participants know about the meeting?
    All medical students at the Sackler medical school will be informed about the course through routine mechanisms in place within the university. Additionally, Esh77 will invite interested Wikipedians to attend AminMDMA's opening session.
  4. How will you keep participants engaged after the meeting is over?
    The medical student participants will continue as enrollees in the course. Any local wikipedians who would like to participate further can be enrolled as on-line volunteers for the course. AminMDMA will continue as a remote guest faculty participant and discussant throughout. We are also considering a peer review process between students in both schools.
  5. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?
    This represents an opportunity for proof-of-concept that editing Wikipedia as a medical school assignment can be generalized to medical schools elsewhere beyond UCSF and Tel Aviv University. We hope it will seed a larger movement across medical schools to embrace (rather than shun) Wikipedia.

Impact

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Note: In addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some Global Metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

  1. Number of total participants: there are 65 medical students per cohort at Sackler, and the course will launch with both the first and second year student cohorts. Thus there will be 170 medical students in attendance.
  2. Number of people who will help organize the event. Esh77 will use the existing medical school infrastructure and support staff to organize the event.
  3. We will be using the Education Dashboard to track students work (usernames, bytes added, page views). Part of the course will also encourage students to conduct related academic research / or improve articles to a point where they can be peer reviewed and therefore published the results in Medical Journals. We believe it is another important way of having impact on the global Medical Community, as well as the general public.

Budget

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  • Funds will cover AminMDMA's travel-related expenses (airfare and hotel) from Helsinki to Tel Aviv as follows:
    • Flight from Helsinki to Tel Aviv on Saturday September 2 arriving Sunday September 3 = 270$ USD
    • Flight from Tel Aviv to San Fransisco on September 5 = 1200$ USD
    • Hotel accommodations for 2 nights = 200 NIS --> 53$ USD

Total: 1523 $ - 356 $ (Amin's original flight fee from Helsinki to the US) = 1167$ USD
Total request = $1167 $

Endorsements

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  • This is a new EDU-Wiki initiative, in an innovative format that has never been tried before. Expanding my work to the American Medical Program at Sackler will allow us to contribute to English Wikipedia, hence have global rather than local impact. Shani Evenstein 17:20, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
  • I support this because I wrote it! AminMDMA (talk) 05:28, 10 August 2017 (UTC)