Crowdsourcing to improve health information access (and support information literacy)

Posted by benniefinch on January 17th, 2025 Posted in: Blog, NLM Resources, Trainings
Tags: Citizen Science, community engagement, Wikipedia

---

The NNLM is hosting two upcoming programs related to Wikipedia in the next few months. On January 27^th the Wikipedia + Libraries class will launch and on March 5^th we will be hosting a #CiteNLM Edit-a-thon.

Consider joining us for one or both!

You may be wondering why NNLM is interested in Wikipedia. Here are few reasons:

• Wikipedia is a widely used, freely available, advertisement free, multilingual information resource.
• Wikipedia is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world (December 2024 | Similarweb).

Given Wikipedia’s popularity, it is both an important resource to understand and has the potential to help guide people to trustworthy health information.

You may be wondering why NNLM is interested in hosting Wikipedia editing events. Here are few reasons:

• We can make it easier to get credible, evidence-based information online and make Wikipedia a better, more evidence-based resource.

• We can increase the reach of NLM resources and disseminate them to a wider audience by adding citations to existing articles needing improvement.
• We can leverage our network members’ expertise, experience, and audiences to engage in collaborative efforts to improve health information online.
• We can support NLM’s major strategic goal to “reach more people in more ways through enhanced dissemination and engagement pathways.”

Why might this be important to you?

By understanding source guidelines, the basics of editing, and learning to use tools in Wikipedia like the history, talk pages, and article grades, you can develop skills to better evaluate information on Wikipedia, support information literacy, and be ready to improve articles. Understanding the resource can assist library staff to confidently guide patrons to authoritative medical and health information online.

Skills/Concepts Gained from Participating in an Edit-a-thon for…

LIS Students

• Gain experience editing Wikipedia
• Gain familiarity with health information resources and crowdsourced information resources
• Build reference and research skills through evaluating and curating information to include in Wikipedia articles
• Learn digital/health literacy skills
  • Evaluate information for a particular purpose
  • Identify and mitigate potential bias in shared information
  • Teach others (students, peers) to do the same

Health Sciences Students

• Gain familiarity with reliable health information resources for general public and providers
• Gain experience in information evaluation, curation, and dissemination on a crowdsourced platform
• Develop critical information evaluation skills necessary for research and practice
• Practice research skills
• Evaluate information in a resource they are likely using, and learn how to fix it if something isn’t accurate

Public/Community Health

• Promote as a way to understand where the public gets information, what that information looks like, and how to improve it

Public, Health Science, and Academic Libraries

• Find examples for information literacy instruction
• Engage students with the library other than as a place to study or find a book

Programming Ideas for…

Education/Instruction

• Use Edit-a-thon as a teaching tool to identify examples for information literacy such as evaluating citations and sources. Can also cover different types of information sources
• Partner with course instructors to do a drop-in program associated with a particular topic
• Pair with other programming or displays on the topic
• Pair an edit-a-thon with a national health observance month

Public and Academic Libraries

• Host an Edit-a-thon or participate in #citeNLM Edit-a-thon to meet the following goals
• Engage public in dialogue on online health information and evaluating information to make health decisions
• Identify topics of interest/concern for community and explore related Wikipedia articles to spark interest

Professional Development/Continuing Education

• Facilitate Edit-a-thon focused on topics of interest for the organization/employees
• Use the event as an opportunity to introduce organization employees local/general health information resources to use in their work

Finally, it’s fun!

Learning to evaluate articles and searching for trustworthy information are fun ways to contribute to better health information access.