WikiLectures:About
WikiLectures are a project focused on creating and storing medical study materials. It's being developed for student and teachers of all medical faculties (so far mainly in Czech Republic and Slovakia). Authors and readers of WikiLectures obtain support from editorial board maintaining the site.
Due to its openess, everyone can contribute to WikiLectures. You can correct mistakes or publish your materials for other students. You can work anonymously, however, it is recomended to log in to obtain better support from editorial board. If you are more interested in working on WikiLectures, join our team (editor@wikilectures.eu).
Main point of this project is to simplify the process of preparation of the education materials, their editing and updating. As our goal is not to create an encyclopaedia, the articles may not satisfy all requirements which are necessary for common encyclopedic entries; they will be rather designed to resemble chapters of textbook.
Main differences between WikiLectures and Wikipedia
Although the rules and recommendations in Wikipedia apply largely to creation of any scientific text and, in most cases, it is advisable to follow them while editing WikiLectures too, the authors should keep in mind the ultimate goal of utilization of their text for educational purposes at medical faculties. Hence, the articles should be designed in a most effective form in order to facilitate their future use in educational process.
Because the education must follow the latest trends in scientific research, sometimes it is needed to use data from original published research too (i.e. using of primary information is allowed). Of course a critical approach towards inclusion of primary research has to be kept, data must be verifiable and their source has to be always cited. Reliability of the data should be always reviewed by the competent specialist. In justified cases, an expert view of a particular topic can appear at WikiLectures, still respecting the principles outlined above
Community of WikiLectures is much smaller than the community of Wikipedia. Correction of potential mistakes and updating of articles through mechanisms common in Wikipedia, i.e. voluntariness and large number of members, might not always be prompt enough. That is the reason why WikiLectures will remain bound to faculty structures to ensure their technical and factual administration.
Which articles you can create (and which not)
Teachers
Most appropriate articles are such that:
- replace current "handouts" or other additions to the educational process;
- enhance current educational materials by providing up-to-date and important information that is missing or not readily available;
- replace frequently updated textbooks or study materials
In all of these cases the WikiLectures facilitate your work!
Things to avoid:
- entering materials that are not necessary for pre-graduate education;
- entering short entries - dictionary definitions – these should be entered into the WikiLectures Dictionary or Wiktionary and then linked back here;
- entering too extensive and detailed information;
- entering highly original work or materials that require more extensive level of copyrights;
- entering materials that quote other works and their citation could be considered as a copyright violation;
- entering articles that contain pictures or other parts that should not be available to general public;
In the above-mentioned cases, the traditional ways of text preparation may be an option with subsequent conversion to .pdf file and insertion into educational portal or Adobe Connect where you can set up access privileges. You can also upload only a piece of your work and than use external link from WikiLectures.
Students
Appropriate articles are such that:
- complement study materials in cases when the available study materials are too detailed or incomprehensible;
- were created as essays assigned by the teacher;
- deal with exam questions.
Avoid articles that:
- are not objective, up-to-date and with neutral point of view;
- use copyrighted material without permission or are in conflict with author law;
- copy accessible study materials without – selecting important information (main points) or summarizing more different sources;
- are not related with educational process such as – autobiographical pages (there are some exception in case of user pages).
Thank you for your patience with reading this article and wish you pleasant work with WikiLectures.
