INFORUM 2011

WikiLectures - A New Form of Collaboration on Educational Texts

Author

Martin Vejražka, Charles University in Prague - First Faculty of Medicine, Czech Republic

Co-authors

Čestmír Štuka, Stanislav Štípek, Antonín Šípek, Petr Kajzar, Charles University in Prague - First Faculty of Medicine, Czech Republic

Documents to download

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Abstract

Effective creation, sharing, and distribution of educational objects for medical students has been an issue for many years. Conventional attempts have to face specifics of medicine: broadness of topics, necessity for frequent and large updates, high load to medical teachers. Employing the Open Web is found to be extremely useful. Since 2008, WikiLectures (WikiSkripta, www.wikiskripta.eu) have been developped. It is a spece for cooperative creation and sharing medical educational objects. Not only teachers but also students are involved in their creation. Communication among teachers and student is changed in this way, it gets more intensive and opened. Students are more involved in the learning process. Writing educational texts is made as easy as possible to the teachers; their most important role is to check and prove accuracy. In 2010, eight medical faculties of the Czech and Slovak Republics actively joined WikiLectures. Many chapters are written in cooperation of several faculties. Despite their short existence, WikiLectures are the most frequently visited Czech and Slovak repository of medical educational texts. 5000 visitors come a day. WikiLectures contain more than 3500 „chapters“, about 300 new are entered every month. The site is maintained by technical editorial board, consisting of medical students from severa faculties. The project involves several communication tools, regular tutorials of editors, social networking and other tools. Dynamism of WikiLectures is really astonishing and hardly comparable with that of other tools used at universities.

Author's professional CV

Dr. Martin Vejražka is an Assistant Professor of Medical Biochemistry at the Charles University in Prague. He is involved in teaching of biochemical subjects for medical students and students of stomatology. In the last years, he works on use of computer assisted teaching in medicine, especially in use of tools of Opened Web.