Wiki-based Gene Reports in Medical Genetics 421

Wyeth Wasserman Centre 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

Wiki-based Gene Reports in Medical Genetics 421

by riacale on Mar 23, 2010

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