Feasibility Study of a Wiki Collaboration Platform for Systematic Review

Eileen ErinoffAHRQ Annual MeetingSeptember 15, 2009

What is a wiki? A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable

anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content (excluding blocked users), using a simplified markup language – Wikipedia

Revision history and reversion Wikis record all changes to a page including the time and initiator of the edit. This means a wiki can always be reverted to a previous version if desired.

Flat structure Wiki pages are easily created and connected via hyperlinks More easily customized by the end user Allows the organization of content to be edited as well as the content itself

Potential uses for wikis in the systematic review process Community of Practice (CoP) Central hub for methodology Connecting related topic areas Individual sites for project working groups Review and editing

Community of Practice (CoP)

Communities of Practice – “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise...” Benefit members through knowledge exchange Exist as long as there’s interest in maintaining the group

Example: ColabWiki http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/

Central hub for methodology

Provide access to methodology research in real time Provide insight for ongoing projects Cross-pollination of ideas between research groups

Connecting related topic areas

Method of linking AHRQ research across multiple categories Link EPC, CERT, and DEcIDE projects in complementary areas Link portions of separate EPC reports on similar subject areas Topic-related forums would allow researchers from different areas to share

their experiences and more importantly, their painful “lessons learned”. Example: Genetic testing – multiple published and ongoing projects At least 3 or 4 EPCs have previously or are currently assigned to work on a project in some

area of genetic testing Type of information exchange not typically captured in formal reports

Individual sites for project working groups Most EPC project teams are collaborations and members frequently are not

working in the same location. EPC staff members, AHRQ Task Order Officers, Partner Organizations, Key Informants, Technical

Experts

Collaborations are currently managed through email, shared documents, web conferencing and conference calls

Using a wiki could simplify and reduce redundancy in these processes

Collaborative authoring Not much evidence supporting this use of wikis for large documents such as

systematic reviews

Difficult to maintain awareness of actions of team members Communication degradation Misinterpretation of comments Conflict resolution Poor tools for annotation Version tracking

Public Applications

Disseminating drafts for public review Topic solicitation Structured feedback area

Governance

Web governance is "the structure of people, positions, authorities, roles, responsibilities, relationships, and rules involved in managing an agency's website(s). The governance structure defines who can make what decisions, who is accountable for which efforts, and how each of the players must work together to operate a website and web management process effectively."

Web Governance Task Force

Governance

Internal wiki governance Federal Government –wikis are subject to the same regulations and

limitations as other federal Internet-based resources Section 508 compliance

Adoption and usage

Setting up a wiki is easy – ensuring widespread adoption and continued usage is not

Barriers Uneven computer literacy and skills Open philosophy conflicts with existing organizational policies and work habits Concept of control and ownership of your work Fear of loss of reader confidence in the work

ConclusionsThere are a number of ways wikis could be useful for systematic

reviews Communities of Practice Project “Homepages” Some aspects of peer review

Collaborative authoring is an interesting prospect but the technology isn’t sufficiently developed to make it practical for large systematic reviews.

Useful LinksWebcontent.gov – Wikis -

http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/technology/wikis.shtml Wikipatterns – http://www.wikipatterns.com

Wiki adoption and usage Good example of a wiki as well

Wikimatrix – http://www.wikimatrix.org Wiki selection – allows comparison of multiple wiki platforms on user

selected specifications

Questions