Online project goes nationwide
Dundee students looking to expand successful editing initiative to include schools across the UK
A project aimed at updating and verifying online dental information is expanding to include collaborators across Scotland, the UK and even worldwide.
The Wikipedia Editing Project began at Dundee Dental School in January 2016 with the aim of making accurate, up to date, evidence-based information widely accessible to all. The project team found that many of the dental articles on the online encyclopaedia were out of date, deficient or entirely absent due to the lack of active dental editors on the site.
With the support of the Cochrane Collaboration, over the past year the students at Dundee have been editing individually as well as in groups, leading to the improvement of many articles and the creation of several others. The project is now being expanded to include other dental schools in Scotland and further afield. Amr Taha, a recent Glasgow graduate, said: “It was alarming to learn of the quality of dental articles on Wikipedia, especially considering the frequency of usage of the website. I felt that if each dentist makes a small contribution, collectively we can make great progress as a profession.”
An event in March will give the Dundee editing groups the chance to showcase their accomplishments so far to delegates from other schools in the UK who will be encouraged to set up
their own editing groups.
Andrew Hannah, who is currently working with Dundee to expand the project, said: “Despite the important changes the Dundee group have already been making, there is plenty more to do. Collaboration with other dental schools will be enjoyable and extremely valuable, allowing us to increase our impact and improve the quality of the work carried out.”
Any individuals or dental schools who wish to join the effort can get in touch with n.geres@dundee.ac.uk
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