Wikipedia and institutional repositories: an academic symbiosis?

A study of citations from Wikipedia articles to documents in institutional repositories showed that although the number of citations was small in relation to the number of documents (citations made to the repositories were 0.35% of the number of documents in the repositories) institutional repositories were a useful source of research information to support Wikipedia articles. 35% of citations were for background information, and 65% were citations supporting specific points, for example: scientific or historical facts, expression of a consensus, attribution of an idea, a convenient summary, the source of a classification, or to give an academic cast to a popular culture article. The types of documents cited reflect the range of academic publishing: 22% of citations were to PhD Theses, 15% to Master level theses, 21% to journal articles, 17% to conference papers, and 11% to technical or working papers. Although the materials in the repositories were overwhelmingly in English, 35% of citations were made from non-English versions of Wikipedia, indicating that institutional repositories play a role in making research available across national and language barriers. Although Wikipedia has been viewed with suspicion by academia the study indicates a potential symbiosis between Wikipedia and academic research in institutional repositories

Wikipedia and institutional repositories: an academic symbiosis?

A study of citations from Wikipedia articles to documents in institutional repositories showed that although the number of citations was small in relation to the number of documents (citations made to the repositories were 0.35% of the number of documents in the repositories) institutional repositories were a useful source of research information to support Wikipedia articles. 35% of citations were for background information, and 65% were citations supporting specific points, for example: scientific or historical facts, expression of a consensus, attribution of an idea, a convenient summary, the source of a classification, or to give an academic cast to a popular culture article. The types of documents cited reflect the range of academic publishing: 22% of citations were to PhD Theses, 15% to Master level theses, 21% to journal articles, 17% to conference papers, and 11% to technical or working papers. Although the materials in the repositories were overwhelmingly in English, 35% of citations were made from non-English versions of Wikipedia, indicating that institutional repositories play a role in making research available across national and language barriers. Although Wikipedia has been viewed with suspicion by academia the study indicates a potential symbiosis between Wikipedia and academic research in institutional repositories

Mapping the backbone of the Humanities through the eyes of Wikipedia

The present study aims to establish a valid method by which to apply the theory of co-citations to Wikipedia article references and, subsequently, to map these relationships between scientific papers. This theory, originally applied to scientific literature, will be transferred to the digital environment of collective knowledge generation. To this end, a dataset containing Wikipedia references collected from Altmetric and Scopus’ Journal Metrics journals has been used. The articles have been categorized according to the disciplines and specialties established in the All Science Journal Classification (ASJC). They have also been grouped by journal of publication. A set of articles in the Humanities, comprising 25 555 Wikipedia articles with 41 655 references to 32 245 resources, has been selected. Finally, a descriptive statistical study has been conducted and co-citations have been mapped using networks and indicators of degree and betweenness centralit

Citation Analysis of Iranian English-language Medical Journals in Wikipedia

Objectives: The purpose of this research was to investigate citations to the Iranian English-language medical journals in Wikipedia. Methodology: This descriptive survey was conducted based on citation analysis and scientometric techniques. The study population includes 289 English-language journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The full title, acronym and abbreviated title of each journal were searched on Wikipedia and Google (site search), and data analysis was conducted using the Excel software. Results: Wikipedia articles were cited to 114 journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. These journals received 1091 citations. Among which, the journal of "Archives of Iranian Medicine" has received the most citations from Wikipedia articles. Journals in the field of medical profession received the most citations among journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Furthermore, 412 Wikipedia articles were in English. Among Wikipedia articles, articles in the plant category have cited more to journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Conclusion: Iranian medical journals, by improving their popularization policies and strategies can be recognized internationally in terms of article citation and science popularization of science. For this reason, science policymakers should pay more attention to the relationship between universities and scientific journals with the public especially Wikipedia, to generalize and popularize the science and scientific information

Incorporating Wikipedia in the Classroom to Improve Science Learning and Communication

Wikipedia, the digital encyclopedia, has approximately 15 billion page views a month and is a platform where editors worldwide collaborate to improve content on topics, including the questions above. Wikipedia supports science communication in several ways. It helps readers comprehend information and contributors clarify the meaning and implications of scientific knowledge. The anatomy of Wikipedia is symmetric, allowing for ease in contribution and discussion. Wikipedia-based assignments range from making small edits, such as copyediting a series of science-related topics, adding citations, or inserting internal links to existing Wikipedia pages, to more substantial contributions. Challenges faced by students necessitate \u27just-in-time instruction on reference reliability, content incorporation, and rules regarding plagiarism. Students in \u27Natural Disturbances and Society\u27 are tasked to contribute content to a series of disturbance articles on Wikipedia based on research in primary literature. Substantial contribution to Wikipedia can be as simple as locating and expanding a Stub, short undeveloped articles on a notable topic

Analyzing Wikipedia Citations to Iranian English-language Journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology

Objectives: This research aimed to investigate Wikipedia citations to the Iranian English-language journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT). Methods: This descriptive survey was conducted based on citation analysis and scientometric techniques. The study population includes 239 English-language journals approved by the Iranian MSRT. Each journal's full title and abbreviated title were used to search on Wikipedia, and collected data were analyzed using Excel software. Results: The findings indicated that Wikipedia cited 78 journals approved by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. These 78 journals had 464 citations from Wikipedia. It is worth noting that the "Iranian Journal of Botany" received the most citations from Wikipedia. Journals in the fields of basic sciences received the most citations among other journals approved by the MSRT. Moreover, 165 Wikipedia's citing articles were in English, and among Wikipedia articles, articles in the plant category cited to the MSRT journals the most. Furthermore, 412 Wikipedia articles were in English, and among Wikipedia articles, articles in the plant category cited the MSRT journals most than others. Among the articles published in the journals approved by the MSRT, the articles with the thematic classification of plants, animals, and lakes of Iran attracted more citations from Wikipedia articles, respectively. Wikipedia articles in English, French, and German, respectively cited them more. Among the journals cited by the Wikipedia articles, 27 journals in the field of basic sciences, 19 journals in the field of technical and engineering, 17 journals in the field of agriculture and natural resources, 9 journals in the field of humanities, 4 journals in the field of veterinary, and only 2 journals in the field of art and architecture have been cited. In total, out of 239 journals approved by the MSRT, only 78 journals have been cited by the Wikipedia articles. In other words, about 33% of the investigated journals have been cited, which can be attributed to the lack of attention of Wikipedia articles to scientific and research journals. Conclusions: By improving their policies and strategies, Iranian journals can be better recognized internationally in terms of citation impact, social impact, and popularization of science. For this reason, science policymakers should pay more attention to the relationship between scientific journals and the public, especially Wikipedia, to generalize and popularize science and research. This study also shows the lack of attention of bibliometricians and scientometricians in evaluating the promotion of science and scientific research via encyclopedias

Science through Wikipedia: A novel representation of open knowledge through co-citation networks

We thank Altmetric.com for the transfer of the data that has allowed us to conduct this studyThis study provides an overview of science from the Wikipedia perspective. A methodology has been established for the analysis of how Wikipedia editors regard science through their references to scientific papers. The method of co-citation has been adapted to this context in order to generate Pathfinder networks (PFNET) that highlight the most relevant scientific journals and categories, and their interactions in order to find out how scientific literature is consumed through this open encyclopaedia. In addition to this, their obsolescence has been studied through Price index. A total of 1 433 457 references available at Altmetric.com have been initially taken into account. After pre-processing and linking them to the data from Elsevier's CiteScore Metrics the sample was reduced to 847 512 references made by 193 802 Wikipedia articles to 598 746 scientific articles belonging to 14 149 journals indexed in Scopus. As highlighted results we found a significative presence of “Medicine” and “Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology” papers and that the most important journals are multidisciplinary in nature, suggesting also that high-impact factor journals were more likely to be cited. Furthermore, only 13.44% of Wikipedia citations are to Open Access journals

The Gene Wiki in 2011: community intelligence applied to human gene annotation

The Gene Wiki is an open-access and openly editable collection of Wikipedia articles about human genes. Initiated in 2008, it has grown to include articles about more than 10 000 genes that, collectively, contain more than 1.4 million words of gene-centric text with extensive citations back to the primary scientific literature. This growing body of useful, gene-centric content is the result of the work of thousands of individuals throughout the scientific community. Here, we describe recent improvements to the automated system that keeps the structured data presented on Gene Wiki articles in sync with the data from trusted primary databases. We also describe the expanding contents, editors and users of the Gene Wiki. Finally, we introduce a new automated system, called WikiTrust, which can effectively compute the quality of Wikipedia articles, including Gene Wiki articles, at the word level. All articles in the Gene Wiki can be freely accessed and edited at Wikipedia, and additional links and information can be found at the project's Wikipedia portal page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Gene_Wiki