Glasgow students join the University of Dundee Dental School Wikipedia Editing Project

Published: 31 March 2017

A group of 13 Glasgow Dental students has joined Dundee Dental School's Wikipedia Editing Project, a student-led initiative with the primary aim of editing oral health-related Wikipedia entries to reflect the most accurate and up-to-date evidence.

Glasgow Wiki Team

The University of Dundee, in a partnership with the Cochrane Collaboration, last year launched the Wikipedia Editing Project, a student-led initiative with the primary aim of editing oral health-related Wikipedia entries to reflect the most accurate and up-to-date evidence. Dundee Dental School recently extended an invitation to dental students from the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow to attend an information day, with the hope of encouraging and facilitating other schools to set-up their own Wiki-editing groups.

A group of 13 Glasgow students, representing BDS1-5, made the trip to Dundee, accompanied by Dr Viv Binnie to hear their Dundee colleagues’ experiences of the Wiki-editing project. Students heard from Prof Pete Mossey, who impressed the far-reaching implications of this project in providing global access to the highest quality of evidence-based information. Students from Dundee described their editing work to date, highlighting the difficulties they encountered and how these were overcome.

Later, Nour Geres, recent graduate and leader of the Dundee group, took students through a brief introduction to editing Wikipedia articles, and provided an insight into how respective universities could begin their own Wiki-editing projects.

The Glasgow student cohort thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, taking the opportunity to explore Dundee in the glorious sunshine, and more importantly, began the process of establishing a Glasgow branch of the Wiki-editing project. As this initiative grows, students from Glasgow look forward to working to improve accessibility to high quality evidence-based dentistry, and to engaging with students from schools not only nationally, but internationally, with editing groups developing at Tufts in Boston and at New York University.

The Wikipedia Editing Project promises a global impact, and students from Glasgow Dental School are well placed to join Dundee and Aberdeen in promoting this Scotland-led, global initiative.


First published: 31 March 2017