Using Wikipedia for research communication

by Sarah McLusky, BPD Communications and Events Coordinator

I’ve been involved in science communication for over 20 years but, until recently, I’d never really thought much about making Wikipedia part of my toolbox. If fact when I was a college lecturer in the 2000s I actively discouraged my students from using it. Then I met Wikipedia enthusiast Kirsty Ross. Kirsty blew my mind with her logic and impressive stats. Kirsty has been using Wikipedia for public engagement projects and as a way of training researchers to clearly communicate their knowledge.

Kirsty described a recent St Andrews University school outreach project called ‘Antibiotics Under Our Feet’. She says “We worked with schools, getting them to submit soil samples from the playgrounds, and then sequencing the DNA. We would get information about what species or genera were found in the soil. So obviously if you give that back to the school, the first thing the teacher will do is Google it. And I realised many of those Wikipedia articles didn’t exist.” Working with a team of students the project created 26 new articles and edited a further 101 leading to over half a million views.

What does anyone do nowadays when they want to know something?

Hearing this it was like a light bulb went off in my head – of course that’s what they do! What do any of us do if we want to know more about something these days? We Google it. And what is usually one of the first hits that comes up? Wikipedia! It makes perfect sense that if researchers want to improve public understanding of their particular area of expertise then forget niche blogs or project websites – Wikipedia should be one of the first places we think of.

So why don’t we use Wikipedia as a research communication tool more often? I understand why Wikipedia might be daunting. Here are some of the arguments I’ve heard (and used myself from time to time).

Myth 1: It’s too hard and I don’t have time

I’ll admit, it’s not as easy to edit as you might think. Even for me it’s been a bit of a steep learning curve but, like anything, it’s fine once you get the hang of it. As a team we got initial training from Kirsty Ross and have been meeting for monthly Zoom co-working sessions so that we can help each other out. The accountability of the co-working sessions also helps this task reach the top of our seemingly never-ending to-do list. If you’d like to join the co-working sessions or get some advice on how to get started do contact Sarah McLusky via [email protected].

Myth 2: Wikipedia can’t be trusted

Then there’s the entrenched belief that Wikipedia can’t be trusted because anyone can edit it. It’s true that anyone can edit it, but that’s exactly why we need experts willing to contribute. Recently I was helping a colleague, Joana Vicente, to update the Wikipedia page for a particular plant pathogen, Xanthomonas campestris. Joana knew that the lead image showed a disease caused by a bacterium which isn’t Xanthomonas campestris at all (see below). I was able to help Joana change the image, but without her expert knowledge I would never have known it needed changed in the first place.  

To enhance the reliability of Wikipedia, editors are strongly encouraged to include links and citations. Although it’s frowned on to use this for shameless self-promotion there is an opportunity to highlight valid and important publications and outputs, potentially increasing their overall readership and citation. As Kirsty says to her students “Don’t cite Wikipedia, cite the citations in Wikipedia!”

Myth 3: It’s not worth the effort as you can’t evidence your contributions

There’s also the fact that there’s no one is publicly named as author or contributor so it’s hard to evidence contributions. That’s what I thought too, but Kirsty was able to set us up with a team dashboard that shows exactly what each team member has contributed and how many hits the page has had since we started to edit it (see below). The Xanthomonas page Joana has been editing has had over 2500 hits since she first edited it 5 weeks ago. Over the same time period the Xanthomonas project page on our programme website has had 31 hits. Our disease information page was only visited once. This also demonstrates how important it is to make sure that Wikipedia information is correct. There’s no point in having accurate information on our website if no-one goes there – one of the first rules of successful communication is that we have to meet the audience where they are. It seems like the audience your are looking for is on Wikipedia! The researchers Kirsty mentors have completed edits which have reached almost a million people – numbers inconceivable for a project website or research publication.

So to sum up – Wikipedia needs you! If you are serious about improving public or stakeholder understanding of your research area, Wikipedia should be an essential part of your communication strategy. If you’d like to join the co-working sessions or get some advice on how to get started do contact Sarah McLusky via [email protected].