Reinventing Information Literacy: Wikipedia and Medical Education

Much evidence attests to the value of Wikipedia in the classroom but relatively few instructors challenge their students to contribute to the online encyclopedia. Increasingly, medical schools are participating in education partnerships with Wiki Edu to have students develop and/or improve health science articles (1).

Medical students are ideal contributors to health science Wikiprojects due to their technical expertise and attention to detail. Additionally, editing medicine-related articles provides a novel opportunity for embedding information literacy concepts into the medical education curriculum.