Wikipedia as a source of scientific information

Tim VickersWashington University, St Louis

Michael LaurentKatholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Scientific literacy is low

• 60% believe they have not eaten GM foods. • 54% heard "nothing at all" about nanotechnology. • 70% either "not very clear" or "not clear at all" on difference

between reproductive and therapeutic cloning. • 9% can say what a stem cell is

National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators 2008

• Funding dependent on public support

• Issues hard to discuss without background

• Evolution

• Animal testing

• Viruses and antibiotics

• Internet and TV sources of science information

Wikipedia: a prominent information source

• 4th most-accessed website

• Search engines

• Wikipedia has high visibility

• 3,600 keywords, in first 10 results in 80% of cases

• Free access.

• Over 270 languages

Laurent MR, Vickers TJ. “Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?” J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. (2009)

H1N1 influenzaSwine influenza article access

Art

icle

req

uest

s pe

r da

y0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

April May

1.3 million per day

• WHO announcement about H1N1 S-OIV on 24th April.

• Traffic spiked on 29th April, levelled off at 30,000 per day.

• By end of May total of 6.3 million readers.

• In June 2009 vitiligo was most-accessed medicine article, with 74,000 hits per day.

Up-to-date: “2009 swine flu outbreak”

• Created April 25th.

• One day later, article contained:

• 22,000 words and 44 references

• Mostly news articles

• Rapidly updated:

• Dawood et. al. “Emergence of a novel swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus in humans.” NEJM on-line May 7.

• Cited in article on same day.

• Articles as summaries of the literature.

• Puts current research into context.

2009 H1N1 S-OIV

Coverage in depth

• News media main alternative to internet

• Difficult to treat science in depth

• What does H1N1 mean? What is a pandemic? What are “flu-like symptoms”?

• About 18,000 medicine articles and 19,000 cell biology articles

• Range from 2-acetolactate mutase, adipokines to asprin

• Articles on every enzyme, most human genes, ncRNAs

• Approx 60-70% of diseases have articles (ICD-10 codes)

Articles form a web of information • Blue links to another article, defines terms, gives background.

Articles form a web of information

Swine influenza

Virus

Influenza

Influenza vaccine

RNA virus

Vaccine

Influenza treatment

2009 flu pandemic

Influenza pandemic

1918 flu pandemicRNA

Immune system

Antiviral drugAmantadine

Paul Ehrlich Vaccination policy

Articles for a diverse audience

Introduction to genetics

DNA

DNA structure

DNA supercoil

Linking number

• Detailed background or technical terms discussed in sub-articles.

• Each article part of a nested hierarchy, general to technical content.

• Readers find level they can understand.

• Includes even technical and specialist topics.

Articles vary in size and quality

• "Influenza“, good, 7,900 words.

• "M2 protein“, poor, 385 words.

• Studies assessing accuracy• Giles “Internet encyclopaedias go head to

head” Nature, 2005• Devgan et al “Wiki-Surgery? Internal

validity of Wikipedia as a medical and surgical reference” J Am Coll Surg, 2007 (35 articles)

• Clansom et al “Scope, Completeness, and Accuracy of Drug Information in Wikipedia.” Ann Pharmacother, 2008 (80 questions)

Quality versus importance ofMolecular and cell biology articles

• Majority of articles are short, but important topics discussed in more depth.

Summary

• High visibility

• Rapidly updated

• Interlinked articles

• Background

• Nested structure

• Articles generally accurate, but many short or incomplete

• Expert contributors needed

Acknowledgments

Wikimedia Foundation

Michael Laurent

National Institutes of Health