Cancer Research UK appeals for clarity on Wikipedia
pharmafile | August 13, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Cancer, Cancer Research UK, wikimania, wikipedia
Cancer Research UK is calling upon the medical community to become more involved with Wikipedia to ensure better accuracy of information.
Speaking at the ‘Wikimania’ conference this week in London, Cancer Research discussed the role of Wikipedia – the free online encyclopaedia that can be edited by anyone – as a genuine medical resource for many people, but said it needs to be understood “how it fits in with their use of other online medical content”.
Now the charity, working with project-based Wikimedia UK that is funded voluntarily through donations, has created a new in-house ‘Wikipedian’ role to ensure that medical experts work closely with Wikipedia. The role is a first of its kind for a medical research organisation and is funded by the Wellcome Trust.
As part of the project the charity will evaluate how people use the site to find information and how to make information easier to understand. Over the course of the venture the information will be monitored to evaluate whether the content has indeed improved.
Henry Scowcroft, Cancer Research UK’s news and multimedia manager, says: “Keeping Wikipedia up to date, accurate and relevant is a huge challenge – one that requires a lot of input, effort and time. We’d like to see more medical professionals, researchers and science communicators get involved in editing and reviewing Wikipedia’s medical and scientific pages”.
He adds: “We feel it’s our responsibility to make sure that cancer information online is as good as it can be, to remove uncertainty, reduce fear and worry, and to help people take their next steps after they, their family or friends hear the phrase ‘it’s cancer’.”
Wikipedia is the fifth most visited website in the world and a huge source of medical information used by groups including patients and medical professionals. The online encyclopaedia is an open access platform however, meaning it can be edited by anybody.
Medical professionals have in the past raised concern about the ‘harmful’ level of misinformation contained on the website.
In May an article published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association found that nine out of ten medical entries on Wikipedia were inaccurate.
Jon Davies, chief executive of Wikimedia UK, says: “As someone who has personal experience of cancer, I know the information on Wikipedia has to be as good as possible. The work that Cancer Research UK is doing to support the improvement of medical content is excellent and I hope that many others will contribute to their efforts.”
Emily MacKenzie
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