Evolutionary Medicine Wikipedia Network (EvMedWikiNet) Assignment Packet POSTED TO WIKIPEDIA COURSE PAGE OCT 19, 2013
Original draft created by Brandon Hidaka, C. Athena Aktipis, Steven Stearns, June 2013. Draft modified by Cynthia Beall for use in ANTH 302/402 Darwinian Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, August 2013.
- Goals
Wikipedia is increasingly used as a medical reference resource by the general public and medical students. This assignment is designed to contribute to the goals of the Evolutionary Medicine Wikipedia Network (EvMedWikiNet), identified as a priority by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) working group on evolutionary medicine education ( http://www.nescent.org/cal/calendar_detail.php?id=862 ) . The goal of the EvMedWikiNet is to add evolutionary considerations to existing Wikipedia medicine articles and to develop new pages on key terms and concepts in evolutionary medicine. The EvMedWikiNet aims to make Wikipedia entries on Evolutionary Medicine topics up-to-date, reliable, crosslinked and accessible to the general public while integrating effectively with existing Wikipedia content.
- Assignment overview
This assignment has several stages. You will develop a wikipedia account, review wikipedia resources, identify a page to edit, edit the page, and review and discuss changes with other students in class and keep a log of your work.
COMPLETED SO FAR
1. Create user name and user page • Click “create account” in the top right corner of the webpage of any Wikipedia article. • Make your user name close to your real name • Click on your user page, it will be a link (your username) in the top right corner when you are logged in. It can be altered like other Wikipedia pages by clicking the ‘Edit’ tab and then clicking on the ‘save page’ button at the bottom. • Add your full name, university and information about your course to your user page, as well as any other information about yourself that you would like others to know • When you are logged in, choose a page, click on “Edit,” and make a small practice edit just to get comfortable with the process OR follow one or more of the options presented on the “Getting Started” page that comes up.
2. Review the evolutionary medicine entry and associated talk page, put it on your watch list. Review the history and page statistics. Watch the video on reliability, check recent changes for this entry.
3. Review the evolution article and associated talk page. Read about the characteristics of good and perfect Wikipedia articles.
4. Review Wikipedia and EvMed Resources
• Read Wikipedia Medicine Project Instructions to authors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles
• Read the criteria for reliable sources and other resources for project medicine.
• Explore other Wikipedia and evolutionary medicine resources (see Appendix A)
5. Choosing a page to edit
There are several ways of thinking about choosing a topic of interest.
• The first is to identify an issue for which there are important evolutionary considerations not yet represented on Wikipedia, for example by consulting from evolutionary medicine resources (Appendix A). This topic should have at least one good, reliable review article which can be cited in your edits.
• The second approach is to choose an article from the list of most viewed articles on WikiProject Medicine.
• A third approach is to choose a disease or a concept of particular interest to you.
6. Editing your article
As you begin editing your article, keep in mind that the goal of the assignment is not to convince readers that evolutionary medicine should be applied to health and disease, but instead to report on the current state of knowledge about the evolutionary considerations relevant to these topics. One of the main pillars of Wikipedia is impartiality (see quote below from Wikipedia page):
Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.
We strive for articles that document and explain the major points of view, giving due weight with respect to their prominence in an impartial tone. We avoid advocacy and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one wellrecognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view". All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong.
a. After you choose your page, copy and save it as the ‘original’ version, then review the article for writing style and review the references for accuracy and appropriateness. Start a list of required improvements. SEPT 24 & 26
b. Once you have chosen your page and reviewed it, you are ready to make changes, perhaps by adding an “Evolutionary Considerations” subheading to the page you have chosen to edit or embedding the answers to the questions below within the existing structure of the article (e.g., discussing evolutionary legacies with a subsection on “causes”):
1. Is this an adaptation? If so, for whom? Is this a byproduct, noise or variation? 2. Are there underlying tradeoffs? Are there associated benefits or costs? 3. Is it an evolutionary legacy? Are there underlying constraints? Is it the result of evolutionary mismatch? If so, what are the specific culpable components of the environment? 4. Is it a defense? What is the level of evidence that it is a defense? Is that evidence clinical, experimental, mechanistic, epidemiologic, convergent? 5. Does coevolution with pathogens play a role in this topic? 6. Does genetic conflict play a role? 7. Does an adaptive capacity for calibration to environmental conditions play a role? 8. Does evolution help explain vulnerability to this disease or improve our understanding of this health topic? What is the added value of the evolutionary perspective? 9. Is this a case where evolutionary insights suggest different clinical treatments?
(note that this list is adapted from chapter 1 of Nesse and Williams Why We Get Sick.)
Before making changes on the page itself, try them out on your user talk page and in your sandbox. They will be available to other Wikipedians and to other student in the course. Rough draft OCT 1 Second draft OCT 8
7. Tips for editing pages:
• Use short sentences with small words
• Use plain English and avoid medical jargon if possible
• Link to the main page on “evolutionary medicine” or other pages relevant to evolutionary medicine when relevant,
• Link from the “evolutionary medicine” page to the page you are modifying so that your page is easy to find
• Cite review articles when possible, use highestquality medical sources (recall the list above)
• Be aware of constraints and limitations within wikipedia
• Understand that having edits deleted is part of the normal Wikipedia editing process
• You may be contacted by editors if you make extensive changes, especially if they are controversial
• Discuss your changes or proposed changes on the “Talk” page associated with your article
• Save your work by copying what you’ve written often. Especially before you hit “save page” or otherwise leave the page.
• The easiest way to cite an article when editing is to...
o have your cursor where you want the citation to placed,
o then click “Cite,” then “Templates,” then “cite journal.”
o Paste in the DOI or PubMed ID, then click the adjacent magnifying glass; the fields should autopopulate. Then click “Insert.”
• Visit
/info/en/?search=Help:Cheatsheet for coding rules, i.e. bold, etc.
- Final draft OCT 10
MODIFICATIONS OCCURRED HERE IN RESPONSE TO WIKIPEDIA EDITORS THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 14.
Please review the information at /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Training particularly for new users and students.
WP:UNDUE, WP:MEDRS and WP:COPYVIO, WP:PLAGIARISM and WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE
Propose your edits on the talk page associated with your topic, and explain your sources. This may reduce the likelihood that your edits will have to be removed.
8. Discuss, review and edit pages with other students Read and evaluate the pages edited by your fellow students, using the guidelines above. During this process you can edit the pages of your classmates directly, provide feedback and discussion in the ‘talk’ tab of the article and/or provide written comments to your classmate about ways in which the article could be improved.
PARTIALLY COMPLETED IN CLASS on OCT 17, discussion will now take place in each student’s sandbox.
OCT 24 Return to this. Report on and evaluate any feedback. Decide if you are ready to post.
9. Retrospective: a. After 2 weeks, return to your page and write an assessment of what changes have been made to your contributions, if any. Your assessment should include a description of changes to your contributions and answer the following questions: • Did the changes of others build upon your contributions in a useful way? • Where any deletions or changes your contributions a result of ignorance or bias? • What can you learn from the observation the changes to this page? • Did you make any changes, additions or add discussion on the ‘talk’ page in response to changes that others made? • What do you wish you had known at the beginning of this process?
b. Do the same after 1 month.
Appendix A: Additional Resources
• Wikipedia goals Five pillars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars • Guidelines for citations by Wikipedia Medicine Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_%28medicine%29 • Wikipedia Medicine Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine • a large initiative to improve the quality and breadth of medical information • The Evolution & Medicine Review: http://evmedreview.com/ • an online journal and blog sharing new findings, meetings, and job postings • Evolution, Medicine and Public Health: http://emph.oxfordjournals.org/ o journal dedicated to evolutionary medicine and excellent resource for references • Journal of Evolutionary Medicine: http://www.ashdin.com/journals/jem/jem.aspx o journal dedicated to addressing medicine and health from an evolutionary perspective • Evolutionary Medicine Edited by Trevathan et al.edited volumeS about evolutionary medicine • Why We Get Sick by Randolph Nesse & George C Williams book that established the field • Evolution of Infectious Disease by Paul Ewald pioneering book on evolutionary processes in infectious disease • Evolution in Health and Disease, edited by Stephen C Stearns & Jacob C Koella textbook • Principles of Evolutionary Medicine by Peter Gluckman textbook on evolutionary medicine • Stearns, S.C. 2012. Evolutionary medicine: Its scope, interest, and potential. Proc. R. Soc. B 279: 43054321. doi: 10.1098.rspb.2012.1326
- Students have finished all their work on Wikipedia that will be considered for grading, and have submitted reflective essays.
Evolutionary Medicine Wikipedia Network (EvMedWikiNet) Assignment Packet POSTED TO WIKIPEDIA COURSE PAGE OCT 19, 2013
Original draft created by Brandon Hidaka, C. Athena Aktipis, Steven Stearns, June 2013. Draft modified by Cynthia Beall for use in ANTH 302/402 Darwinian Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, August 2013.
- Goals
Wikipedia is increasingly used as a medical reference resource by the general public and medical students. This assignment is designed to contribute to the goals of the Evolutionary Medicine Wikipedia Network (EvMedWikiNet), identified as a priority by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) working group on evolutionary medicine education ( http://www.nescent.org/cal/calendar_detail.php?id=862 ) . The goal of the EvMedWikiNet is to add evolutionary considerations to existing Wikipedia medicine articles and to develop new pages on key terms and concepts in evolutionary medicine. The EvMedWikiNet aims to make Wikipedia entries on Evolutionary Medicine topics up-to-date, reliable, crosslinked and accessible to the general public while integrating effectively with existing Wikipedia content.
- Assignment overview
This assignment has several stages. You will develop a wikipedia account, review wikipedia resources, identify a page to edit, edit the page, and review and discuss changes with other students in class and keep a log of your work.
COMPLETED SO FAR
1. Create user name and user page • Click “create account” in the top right corner of the webpage of any Wikipedia article. • Make your user name close to your real name • Click on your user page, it will be a link (your username) in the top right corner when you are logged in. It can be altered like other Wikipedia pages by clicking the ‘Edit’ tab and then clicking on the ‘save page’ button at the bottom. • Add your full name, university and information about your course to your user page, as well as any other information about yourself that you would like others to know • When you are logged in, choose a page, click on “Edit,” and make a small practice edit just to get comfortable with the process OR follow one or more of the options presented on the “Getting Started” page that comes up.
2. Review the evolutionary medicine entry and associated talk page, put it on your watch list. Review the history and page statistics. Watch the video on reliability, check recent changes for this entry.
3. Review the evolution article and associated talk page. Read about the characteristics of good and perfect Wikipedia articles.
4. Review Wikipedia and EvMed Resources
• Read Wikipedia Medicine Project Instructions to authors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles
• Read the criteria for reliable sources and other resources for project medicine.
• Explore other Wikipedia and evolutionary medicine resources (see Appendix A)
5. Choosing a page to edit
There are several ways of thinking about choosing a topic of interest.
• The first is to identify an issue for which there are important evolutionary considerations not yet represented on Wikipedia, for example by consulting from evolutionary medicine resources (Appendix A). This topic should have at least one good, reliable review article which can be cited in your edits.
• The second approach is to choose an article from the list of most viewed articles on WikiProject Medicine.
• A third approach is to choose a disease or a concept of particular interest to you.
6. Editing your article
As you begin editing your article, keep in mind that the goal of the assignment is not to convince readers that evolutionary medicine should be applied to health and disease, but instead to report on the current state of knowledge about the evolutionary considerations relevant to these topics. One of the main pillars of Wikipedia is impartiality (see quote below from Wikipedia page):
Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.
We strive for articles that document and explain the major points of view, giving due weight with respect to their prominence in an impartial tone. We avoid advocacy and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one wellrecognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view". All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong.
a. After you choose your page, copy and save it as the ‘original’ version, then review the article for writing style and review the references for accuracy and appropriateness. Start a list of required improvements. SEPT 24 & 26
b. Once you have chosen your page and reviewed it, you are ready to make changes, perhaps by adding an “Evolutionary Considerations” subheading to the page you have chosen to edit or embedding the answers to the questions below within the existing structure of the article (e.g., discussing evolutionary legacies with a subsection on “causes”):
1. Is this an adaptation? If so, for whom? Is this a byproduct, noise or variation? 2. Are there underlying tradeoffs? Are there associated benefits or costs? 3. Is it an evolutionary legacy? Are there underlying constraints? Is it the result of evolutionary mismatch? If so, what are the specific culpable components of the environment? 4. Is it a defense? What is the level of evidence that it is a defense? Is that evidence clinical, experimental, mechanistic, epidemiologic, convergent? 5. Does coevolution with pathogens play a role in this topic? 6. Does genetic conflict play a role? 7. Does an adaptive capacity for calibration to environmental conditions play a role? 8. Does evolution help explain vulnerability to this disease or improve our understanding of this health topic? What is the added value of the evolutionary perspective? 9. Is this a case where evolutionary insights suggest different clinical treatments?
(note that this list is adapted from chapter 1 of Nesse and Williams Why We Get Sick.)
Before making changes on the page itself, try them out on your user talk page and in your sandbox. They will be available to other Wikipedians and to other student in the course. Rough draft OCT 1 Second draft OCT 8
7. Tips for editing pages:
• Use short sentences with small words
• Use plain English and avoid medical jargon if possible
• Link to the main page on “evolutionary medicine” or other pages relevant to evolutionary medicine when relevant,
• Link from the “evolutionary medicine” page to the page you are modifying so that your page is easy to find
• Cite review articles when possible, use highestquality medical sources (recall the list above)
• Be aware of constraints and limitations within wikipedia
• Understand that having edits deleted is part of the normal Wikipedia editing process
• You may be contacted by editors if you make extensive changes, especially if they are controversial
• Discuss your changes or proposed changes on the “Talk” page associated with your article
• Save your work by copying what you’ve written often. Especially before you hit “save page” or otherwise leave the page.
• The easiest way to cite an article when editing is to...
o have your cursor where you want the citation to placed,
o then click “Cite,” then “Templates,” then “cite journal.”
o Paste in the DOI or PubMed ID, then click the adjacent magnifying glass; the fields should autopopulate. Then click “Insert.”
• Visit
/info/en/?search=Help:Cheatsheet for coding rules, i.e. bold, etc.
- Final draft OCT 10
MODIFICATIONS OCCURRED HERE IN RESPONSE TO WIKIPEDIA EDITORS THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 14.
Please review the information at /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Training particularly for new users and students.
WP:UNDUE, WP:MEDRS and WP:COPYVIO, WP:PLAGIARISM and WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE
Propose your edits on the talk page associated with your topic, and explain your sources. This may reduce the likelihood that your edits will have to be removed.
8. Discuss, review and edit pages with other students Read and evaluate the pages edited by your fellow students, using the guidelines above. During this process you can edit the pages of your classmates directly, provide feedback and discussion in the ‘talk’ tab of the article and/or provide written comments to your classmate about ways in which the article could be improved.
PARTIALLY COMPLETED IN CLASS on OCT 17, discussion will now take place in each student’s sandbox.
OCT 24 Return to this. Report on and evaluate any feedback. Decide if you are ready to post.
9. Retrospective: a. After 2 weeks, return to your page and write an assessment of what changes have been made to your contributions, if any. Your assessment should include a description of changes to your contributions and answer the following questions: • Did the changes of others build upon your contributions in a useful way? • Where any deletions or changes your contributions a result of ignorance or bias? • What can you learn from the observation the changes to this page? • Did you make any changes, additions or add discussion on the ‘talk’ page in response to changes that others made? • What do you wish you had known at the beginning of this process?
b. Do the same after 1 month.
Appendix A: Additional Resources
• Wikipedia goals Five pillars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars • Guidelines for citations by Wikipedia Medicine Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_%28medicine%29 • Wikipedia Medicine Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine • a large initiative to improve the quality and breadth of medical information • The Evolution & Medicine Review: http://evmedreview.com/ • an online journal and blog sharing new findings, meetings, and job postings • Evolution, Medicine and Public Health: http://emph.oxfordjournals.org/ o journal dedicated to evolutionary medicine and excellent resource for references • Journal of Evolutionary Medicine: http://www.ashdin.com/journals/jem/jem.aspx o journal dedicated to addressing medicine and health from an evolutionary perspective • Evolutionary Medicine Edited by Trevathan et al.edited volumeS about evolutionary medicine • Why We Get Sick by Randolph Nesse & George C Williams book that established the field • Evolution of Infectious Disease by Paul Ewald pioneering book on evolutionary processes in infectious disease • Evolution in Health and Disease, edited by Stephen C Stearns & Jacob C Koella textbook • Principles of Evolutionary Medicine by Peter Gluckman textbook on evolutionary medicine • Stearns, S.C. 2012. Evolutionary medicine: Its scope, interest, and potential. Proc. R. Soc. B 279: 43054321. doi: 10.1098.rspb.2012.1326
- Students have finished all their work on Wikipedia that will be considered for grading, and have submitted reflective essays.