Wyeth WassermanCentre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics

Child and Family Research Institute

Department of Medical Genetics

Wiki-based Gene Reports in Medical Genetics 421

Medical Genetics 421

• ~35 advanced undergraduate students– Most destined for graduate school in life

sciences or medical school• High demand for long awaited return of course led

to student population with history of high performance

– Essentially an honours class

– Students are uniformly aware of Wikipedia, but few (3-4 on average) have previously contributed/modified an entry

Course Format

• Lecture-based• Classical – sit, listen and ask questions• 75% of lectures by “guest” specialists

• Marks• 50% non-comprehensive exams (2)• 25% paper summaries (10)

» 1 page summaries of primary scientific literature

• 18% cancer gene report developed in MediaWiki

» Extra credit for top reports if posted to Wikipedia

• 7% for team-based gene network MediaWiki report (combines the “related” genes)

MediaWiki Training

• Critical to introduce the MediaWiki software to the students– Sample for key formats given

• http://www.cisreg.ca/medg421/wiki/index.php/User:Jlim

– Dedicated 30 minute tutorial early in the term

• Walk the students through creation of a page

• http://www.cisreg.ca/medg421/wiki/index.php/Medg421:Protected_page

Medg421 Wikipedia Gene Reports

• Course wiki• http://www.cisreg.ca/medg421/wiki/index.php/Category:Genes

• Example of Wikipedia Posting (extra credit)

• Deleted in Liver Cancer 1 (DLC1)– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLC1

Image from the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project. http://cgap.nci.nih.gov/Pathways/BioCarta/h_egfPathway

Observations

• Students expressed surprising enthusiasm for the project

• Many students put in far greater effort than required for a good mark

• Led to word count limits in recent year

• Provided continuity with the wide range of cancer processes addressed in class

• The relationship of ‘their gene’ to the theme of the week kept the students engaged

• In the initial year, students only did individual project; better experience when combining their efforts led to gene network extension

Observations (2)

• Difficult to grade • Limit length• Content vs utility (keep students focused on useful

information)• History logs reviewed to assess team project

contributions (a better system would be nice)

• Exposes lack of understanding

• Hard to grade (~30 minutes each). Team projects for larger classes would be best.

Lessons Learned

• Word Limits!• Keeps students focused• Revisions necessary to cover required information in allowed

space

• Plagiarism tutorial• Some students seemed to think that the wiki-format was

open license to copy text without attribution

• More explicit requirements• Incorporating more hyperlinks• Create a summary figure

• Limit selection of topics (genes)• Group projects require sets of related genes

What’s Next ?

• Collaborative wiki projects with cancer biology classes at other institutions

• Open-textbook and instructional materials developed in global partnership

• Popular text books, but not frequently updated

• Under consideration: student multi-media reports to introduce cancer concepts