S Bliven - Why scientists should contribute to Wikipedia

BOSC 2012 Talk

Why Scientists should contribute to Wikipedia Reconciling publish-or-perish with open access through PLoS Comp Biol Topic Pages Spencer Bliven, Andreas Prlić, Philip Bourne University of California, San Diego

BOSC 2012 Talk

Why Scientists should contribute to Wikipedia Reconciling publish-or-perish with open access through PLoS Comp Biol Topic Pages Spencer Bliven, Andreas Prlić, Philip Bourne University of California, San Diego

Full Disclosure: PLoS Comp Bio Editors

BOSC 2012 Talk

Wikipedia is the largest journal

•  Currently 6th most-popular site (Alexa) •  285 Languages •  4,000,285 articles in English •  Over 1,000 new articles per day •  PLoS:ONE published 13,595 articles 2007-10

Spencer Bliven, Andreas Prlic, Philip Bourne 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes

BOSC 2012 Talk

Scientists Contributing to Wikipedia

“ Nature surveyed more than 1,000 Nature authors and found that although more than 70% had heard of Wikipedia and 17% of those consulted it on a weekly basis, less than 10% help to update it. The steady trickle of scientists who have contributed to articles describe the experience as rewarding, if occasionally frustrating” - Jim Giles Nature 438, 900-901 (15 December 2005)


BOSC 2012 Talk

Why Don’t Scientists Contribute More

1.  Perceived inaccuracies •  Comparable accuracy to other Encyclopedias

o  Nature 438, 900-901 (15 December 2005) o  Dorothee Wiegand: "Entdeckungsreise. Digitale

Enzyklopädien erklären die Welt." c't 6/2007, March 5, 2007, p. 136-145

o  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

2.  Little time for outreach activities 3.  No direct attribution or citation


BOSC 2012 Talk

Dangling the Carrot

6 Spencer Bliven, Andreas Prlic, Philip Bourne

WikiUser et al. (2012) PLoS Comp Biol. 3(1) 41-59

“Running Man” by Hector Gomez

BOSC 2012 Talk

PLoS Comp Bio’s Solution


BOSC 2012 Talk

Topic Pages

•  Peer reviewed (Open Review) •  CC-BY license •  Similar to Review article •  Accessible language, minimal jargon •  Drafted in Wiki markup •  Full drafting history included as Supplemental

Material


BOSC 2012 Talk

Major Differences


License

References Primary, peer-reviewed articles

Secondary, encyclopedic sources

Authorship Explicit, limited number of authors

“Ownership” discouraged. Authors in page history

Content Abstract, Conclusions Lead, Hyperlinks

Technology Word documents Wiki markup and XML

Original Research Required Forbidden

Culture Reluctant Reviewers, Polite Editor Opinionated crowd

BOSC 2012 Talk

Topic Page Process

1.  Find computational biology topic not covered by Wikipedia

2.  Create account on the drafting wiki: http://topicpages.ploscompbiol.org


Mikael Sunnåker, Alberto Giovanni Busetto, Elina Numminen, Jukka Corander, Matthieu Foll, Christophe Dessimoz

BOSC 2012 Talk

Topic Page Process

3.  Draft article according to PLoS & Wikipedia guidelines

4.  Pass open peer review on Talk page


Miguel A. Fortuna, Luis Zaman, Aaron P. Wagner, Charles Ofria

BOSC 2012 Talk

Topic Page Process

5.  On publication date, copy article to Wikipedia!


BOSC 2012 Talk

Current Pages

0 5 10 15 20

Published

Submitted

PLoSWiki

Planned

Number of Topic Pages at each stage

• 25 Registered PLoSWiki users (authors, editors, and reviewers)


BOSC 2012 Talk

User Profiles

Phil Bourne PI & Editor-in-chief of PLoS:Comp Bio

Andreas Prlić [[User:Andorsch]] Co-author

Shoshana Wodak Daniel Mietchen

Topic Page Editors


BOSC 2012 Talk

Resources

•  Email [email protected] to get started •  See guidelines at

http://topicpages.ploscompbiol.org/wiki/Topic_Pages or http://www.ploscompbiol.org/attachments/topicpages.pdf

•  Visit Andreas or I at the PLoS booth during ISMB –  Andreas: Tuesday 1-1:15 –  Spencer: Monday 2-2:15

•  Poster #16 •  Read the editorial:

–  Wodak SJ, Mietchen D, Collings AM, Russell RB, Bourne PE (2012) Topic Pages: PLoS Computational Biology Meets Wikipedia. PLoS Comput Biol 8(3): e1002446


BOSC 2012 Talk 16 Spencer Bliven, Andreas Prlic, Philip Bourne

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

BOSC 2012 Talk

Coverage of Science Articles

WikiProject Number of Articles Science 1,629 Biology 1,797 Physics 16,371 Chemistry 6,202 Computer Science 3,811 Molecular & Cellular Biology 21,834 Computational Biology 1,104
