Citations in Wikipedia for understanding research reach

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2024.1730

Keywords:

Citations, Wikipedia, research reach

Abstract

Objective: Wikipedia is the most frequently accessed online health information resource and is well positioned as a valuable tool for public health communication and knowledge translation. The authors aimed to explore their institution's health and medical research reach by analyzing its presence in Wikipedia articles.

Methods: In October 2022, a comprehensive database search was constructed in PubMed to retrieve clinical evidence syntheses published by at least one author affiliated with McMaster University from 2017 to 2022, inclusive. Altmetric Explorer was queried using PubMed Identifiers and article titles to access metadata and Wikipedia citation data. 3,582 health evidence syntheses from at least one McMaster University affiliated author were analyzed.

Results: Six percent (n=219) of health evidence syntheses from the authors' institution were cited 568 times in 524 unique Wikipedia articles across 28 different language editions. 45% of citations appeared in English Wikipedia, suggesting a broad global reach for the institutions' research outputs. When adjusted for open access publications, 8% of McMaster University's health evidence syntheses appear in Wikipedia.

Conclusion: Altmetric Explorer is a valuable tool for exploring the reach of an institution's research outputs. Isolating Altmetric data to focus on Wikipedia citations has value for any institution wishing to gain more insight into the global, community-level reach of its contributions to the latest health and medical evidence.

References

Committed to Creating a Brighter World – Brighter World [Internet]. [cited 2022 Apr 22]. Available from: https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/about/.

About Us | Health Sciences Library [Internet]. [cited 2022 Apr 22]. Available from: https://hsl.mcmaster.ca/about-us.

Priem J, Taraborelli D, Groth P, et al. altmetrics: a manifesto. Copyr Fair Use Sch Commun Etc [Internet]. 2011; Available from: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/scholcom/185.

Bornmann L. Validity of altmetrics data for measuring societal impact: A study using data from Altmetric and F1000Prime. J Informetr. 2014;8:935–950.

Bornmann L. Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics. J Informetr. 2014;8:895–903.

Sud P, Thelwall M. Evaluating altmetrics. Scientometrics. 2014;98:1131–1143.

The donut and Altmetric Attention Score [Internet]. Altmetric. 2015 [cited 2023 Feb 3]. Available from: https://www.altmetric.com/about-our-data/the-donut-and-score/.

Haustein S. Grand challenges in altmetrics: heterogeneity, data quality and dependencies. Scientometrics. 2016;108:413–423.

Kim Y, Kim J-E, Kim YH, et al. Social attention and scientific articles on stroke: Altmetric analysis of top-50 articles. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2019;183:105386.

Serghiou S, Marton RM, Ioannidis JPA. Media and social media attention to retracted articles according to Altmetric. PLOS ONE. 2021;16:e0248625.

Salisbury L, Smith JJ, Faustin F. Altmetric Attention Score and Its Relationships to the Characteristics of the Publications in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Sci Technol Libr. 2023;42:335–352.

Altmetric Attention Score [Internet]. Altmetric. [cited 2023 Mar 3]. Available from: https://help.altmetric.com/support/solutions/articles/6000233311-how-is-the-altmetric-attention-score-calculated-.

Altmetric Attention Score modifiers [Internet]. Altmetric. [cited 2023 Mar 3]. Available from: https://help.altmetric.com/support/solutions/articles/6000234288-altmetric-attention-score-modifiers.

Heilman JM, West AG. Wikipedia and Medicine: Quantifying Readership, Editors, and the Significance of Natural Language. J Med Internet Res. 2015;17:e62.

Shafee T, Masukume G, Kipersztok L, et al. Evolution of Wikipedia’s medical content: past, present and future. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2017;71:1122–1129.

Laurent MR, Vickers TJ. Seeking Health Information Online: Does Wikipedia Matter? J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009;16:471–479.

Heilman JM, Kemmann E, Bonert M, et al. Wikipedia: A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion. J Med Internet Res. 2011;13:e14.

Donelle L, Hall J, Hiebert B, et al. Investigation of Digital Technology Use in the Transition to Parenting: Qualitative Study. JMIR Pediatr Parent. 2021;4:e25388.

Murray H. More than 2 billion pairs of eyeballs: Why aren’t you sharing medical knowledge on Wikipedia? BMJ Evid-Based Med. 2019;24:90–91.

Cohen N. How Wikipedia Prevents the Spread of Coronavirus Misinformation. Wired [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2021 Dec 7]; Available from: https://www.wired.com/story/how-wikipedia-prevents-spread-coronavirus-misinformation/.

Countering vaccine misinformation via Wikipedia [Internet]. Wiki Educ. 2022 [cited 2022 Aug 24]. Available from: https://wikiedu.org/blog/2022/05/26/countering-vaccine-misinformation-via-wikipedia/.

The World Health Organization and Wikimedia Foundation expand access to trusted information about COVID-19 on Wikipedia [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2022 Aug 25]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news/item/22-10-2020-the-world-health-organization-and-wikimedia-foundation-expand-access-to-trusted-information-about-covid-19-on-wikipedia.

Romanello M, Napoli CD, Drummond P, et al. The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels. The Lancet. 2022;400:1619–1654.

Ibrahim N. Is Wikipedia as ‘unreliable’ as you’ve been told? Experts suggest the opposite may be true | Globalnews.ca [Internet]. Glob. News. 2021 [cited 2021 Dec 16]. Available from: https://globalnews.ca/news/7921230/wikipedia-reliablity/.

Jemielniak D. Wikipedia: Why is the common knowledge resource still neglected by academics? GigaScience. 2019;8.

Tattersall A, Sheppard N, Blake T, et al. Exploring open access coverage of Wikipedia-cited research across the White Rose Universities. Insights- Uksg J [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2023 Feb 3];35. Available from: https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.559/.

Arroyo-Machado W, Torres-Salinas D, Herrera-Viedma E, et al. Science through Wikipedia: A novel representation of open knowledge through co-citation networks. PloS One. 2020;15:e0228713.

Kousha K, Thelwall M. Are wikipedia citations important evidence of the impact of scholarly articles and books? J Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2017;68:762–779.

Pooladian A, Borrego Á. Methodological issues in measuring citations in Wikipedia: a case study in Library and Information Science. Scientometrics. 2017;113:455–464.

Adams CE, Montgomery AA, Aburrow T, et al. Adding evidence of the effects of treatments into relevant Wikipedia pages: a randomised trial. BMJ Open. 2020;10:e033655.

Smith DA. Situating Wikipedia as a health information resource in various contexts: A scoping review. PloS One. 2020;15.

James R. WikiProject Medicine: Creating Credibility in Consumer Health. J Hosp Librariansh. 2016;16:344–351.

Smith DA. Wikipedia: an unexplored resource for understanding consumer health information behaviour in library and information science scholarship. J Doc [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2021 Oct 28];78. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2021-0049.

Smith DA. Consumer health on Wikipedia: results of a qualitative study. Submiss 2022 [Internet]. Online; 2022 [cited 2023 Jan 31]. Available from: https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submissions:2022/Consumer_health_on_Wikipedia:_results_of_a_qualitative_study.

Banasik-Jemielniak N, Jemielniak D, Wilamowski M. Psychology and Wikipedia: Measuring Psychology Journals’ Impact by Wikipedia Citations. Soc Sci Comput Rev. 2022;40:756–774.

Maggio LA, Willinsky JM, Costello JA, et al. Integrating Wikipedia editing into health professions education: a curricular inventory and review of the literature. Perspect Med Educ. 2020;9:333–342.

Mendes TB, Dawson J, Evenstein Sigalov S, et al. Wikipedia in Health Professional Schools: from an Opponent to an Ally. Med Sci Educ [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2021 Oct 26]; Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-021-01408-6.

Azzam A, Bresler D, Leon A, et al. Why Medical Schools Should Embrace Wikipedia: Final-Year Medical Student Contributions to Wikipedia Articles for Academic Credit at One School. Acad Med. 2017;92:194–200.

Apollonio DE, Broyde K, Azzam A, et al. Pharmacy students can improve access to quality medicines information by editing Wikipedia articles. BMC Med Educ. 2018;18:265.

Aucar N, Viteri-García A, Simancas-Racines D, et al. Knowledge translation: Cochrane, Wikipedia and students initiatives. Medwave. 2020;20:e7859.

Torres-Salinas D, Romero-Frias E, Arroyo-Machado W. Mapping the backbone of the Humanities through the eyes of Wikipedia. J Informetr. 2019;13:793–803.

Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) [Internet]. Wikipedia. 2022 [cited 2022 Apr 22]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)&oldid=1082402046.

Teplitskiy M, Lu G, Duede E. Amplifying the impact of open access: Wikipedia and the diffusion of science. J Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2017;68:2116–2127.

Xu B, Li D. An empirical study of the motivations for content contribution and community participation in Wikipedia. Inf Manage. 2015;52:275–286.

Sample Size Calculator [Internet]. [cited 2023 Nov 27]. Available from: https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=1&cl=95&ci=5&pp=50&ps=3582&x=Calculate.

Lih A. The Wiki Phenomenon. Wikipedia Revolut Bunch Nobodies Creat Worlds Gt Encycl. New York, NY: Hyperion; 2009. p. 1–12.

Wikipedia: Verifiability [Internet]. Wikipedia. 2023 [cited 2023 Feb 7]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&oldid=1136961383.

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2024-05-22

Issue

Section

Original Investigation