CRUK – WIKIPEDIA NEWSLETTER
editIssue 3, February 3rd 2015 'The newsletter for Wikipedia:WikiProject CRUK By John Byrne, Wikipedian in Residence, Press & Science Communications dept, Angel, x 5318
In case you are wondering why I'm still around, my term at CRUK was originally planned to end in mid-December but was then extended to mid-February. Many thanks to Wellcome Trust, who funded the main period and 50% of the extension, and to CRUK and Wikimedia UK who added 255 of the extension funding each. I now finish on February 13, so if you have any questions for me, ask now. There's still a lot going on, and Henry Scowcroft & I are determined to see that the collaboration between CRUK and Wikipedia continues after I leave.
We're finally getting the quantitative research study carried out through YouGov, which is the last brick in the wall of the main programme. My CRUK email is about to go dead, since I ended CRUK employment in February.
Henry Scowcroft will be co-ordinating CRUK Wikimedia matters for the moment, though I can probably help on many. Henry is continuing to discuss ways of incorporating working with Wikimedia into "business as usual", and I'm really pleased that this was already in place in some areas when I left - for example in uploading new diagrams, infographics, and (I hope) animations to Wikimedia Commons,.
So, what are the achievements? Some highlight points:
.jpg)
Images: Over 500 images and some animations have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (all are at the Commons category. To the end of February 2015 the Wikipedia articles using these have received over 10 million pageviews on desk or laptops alone (baglama2), plus a further 3 million or so uncounted views on mobile or tablet etc. They are now used in 17 different language versions of Wikipedia. English Wikipedia and the cancer diagrams account for the great majority of the numbers, but we now have a range of other images. We've even finally managed to get a couple of CRUK shop images that have the current branding! Phew.
The new form of model release is now being used, with an opt-in for release on an open license. This will allow more of the images taken in future to be used. Oddly, while we have thousands of pathology slides and cell research microscopy clips, Wikipedia is remarkably short of good photos of many basic clinical and nursing procedures, largely because of model release issues.
Research: The research was two related studies. A qualitative study asked 30 participants from the general public to research pancreatic cancer on the internet, using a laptop, for at least 12 minutes, while their screen was recorded. They were then interviewed about their search choices, and what they though of the sites, assisted by playing back the screen recorder. Fascinating stuff, which I am continuing to work on & I hope will become a published paper.
The quantitative study, done through YouGov, directed 1,000 of their usual "omnibus" group to one of 3 webpages on pancreatic cancer, and then asked questions about it. The pages were the NHS Choices introduction, Wikipedia from before this project, and Wikipedia now, after the project pushed it to Featured article status. We also intend to publish the results of this.
Training: Many of you will be among the nearly 100 people in CRUK who had training of some kind, and I really hope you will make some use of it by editing every so often. But at least you should have a better understanding of how it works.
Articles: The project has reached a great many articles around cancer, and will continue to do so. Apart from the new Featured articles for Pancreatic cancer, Endometrial cancer, and a revised FA for Lung cancer, there's been work resulting in one way and another from the project on a huge range of articles, including the addition of basic UK statistics for all the cancers the Statistics team cover.
Thanks to everybody who participated in any way! The project has been a trailblazer in many ways, and it was a wonderful experience to be part of it! In particular thanks to Wellcome Trust for funding it, Henry for being a great boss, all the News & Multimedia & wider Press & Science Communications team for putting up with me, the CancerHelp team (the Jens & Debbies in particular), Alan Slater, and Henry Potts of UCL ,
All the best for the future to everyone! John