John Byrne, Cancer Research UK Wikipedian-in-Residence. Progress Report covering May and June 2014 I started the role on May 1st. There was an unusual situation around my recruitment. The idea for the post and the process of getting funding from the Wellcome Trust was essentially driven by Henry Scowcroft and Ollie Childs of the Press and Science Communication team. Henry had a sabbatical period due after 10 years at CRUK, and went on extended long-haul travels, so missed all the recruitment, which Ollie handled.
However he was leaving to go freelance, and left soon after my appointment was agreed, and before Henry’s return. I had persuaded Ollie that treating the role as 4/5 part-time was best all round. I was committed to finishing in July my 1/5 appointment in a similar role at the Royal Society. I was also convinced that in a complex multi-faceted role like the CRUK one, where all the aspects involved working with other people, both inside and outside CRUK, the more time available for a fixed-term project the better, as progress will very often depend on others coming back or doing something. My starting-date now needed to be after Henry’s return, slightly later than originally planned. So I didn’t meet Henry until I started, though we had discussed thing by phone and email.
With so many internal people, we have decided to concentrate on internal events, for CRUK and its communities, except that we are very keen to do something with the medical editors gathered in London for Wikimania 2014 in early August. We are exploring doing “experts meet Wikipedians” events, somewhat on the model of Hoxne Hoard at the British Museum, but do not expect to be offering training to the general public.
A number of introductory meetings had been arranged before I arrived, and more were fixed later. CRUK is a large organization with a complex departmental structure, and several different teams have expertise that I’m hoping to tap. After two months I am still meeting new people and explaining myself to new teams. I also devoted considerable time, before and after starting at CRUK, in getting to understand the English Wikipedia’s medical content, and the dynamics of the regular medical editing community. It was not an area I had ever really edited in before. The project divides into four main areas:
Content
editThe key targets, promised in the funding application, are the English Wikipedia articles on the four cancers identified for increased effort in CRUK’s new Research Strategy, because their treatment has not shown as much improvement over recent decades as other cancers. These are cancers of the lung, brain, oesophagus and pancreas.
After my preliminary meetings, and getting understanding of the medical editors and the current state of the articles, I decided a strategy, which may be adapted or changed as things develop. I’ve started by asking the in-house person responsible for the Cancer Help patient-directed pages on the particular cancers to review the article before sitting with them and going making notes as to areas of improvement, and highlighting key references/source material.
The output of this session is then written-up by me and posted on the article talk page, with a note to the WikiProject:Medicine talk page. I have completed this stage for pancreatic and oesophageal Cancer, and I’m pleased with the level of response from the regulars. I will also be getting separate reviews of the epidemiology sections from other specialists, and trying to get decent sections on directions in research for these cancers – at the moment that has one line between the two articles.
After the articles have had these improvements they will be ready to be sent to still more specialized outside reviewers. The improved articles will then be taken to at least Good Article candidacy, and I hope Featured Article (lung cancer is already FA). There are other cancer-related articles that have already been improved, and more will be done in the future, but these ones are the priority.
Research
editWe are planning research, which we hope will be published, to understand a) how people use Wikipedia when searching for cancer information online, and b) how they rate the information on Wikipedia before and after article improvements. The Wellcome Trust grant for the role includes a budget for research. We have developed a research brief with help from CRUK people with expertise, and are discussing it with academics working in this area.
Images for Commons
editThis has progressed very well, with a general decision by CRUK that, where there are no reasons not to release media on open licenses, it should be so released. However there are many reasons why particular images cannot be released, and a governance panel is being formed to vet the images I being to them. Fining these is not straightforward, as they are not fully centralized.
Training and outreach
editI’ve delivered short introductory talks or sessions at a variety of lengths up to 75 minutes to different groups of staff around the charity, and also a longer in-depth editing workshop to the Science Communications team. I’m customizing the material for CRUK in general, and the skills and interests of the different groups, and tweaking it in the light of some professional feedback.
Wikimania
editAdditionally, the coincidence of Wikimania 2014 being in London, in early August will be an great opportunity for me to meet and enthuse the many regular medical editors from North America and elsewhere who are coming, and CRUK plans to hold an event for them. Henry and I are also presenting with others a short panel discussion, entitled “Medical information online; Wikipedia's place in the ecosystem”.
Communicating the role
editAs at the Royal Society, I’m using a distinct account for my edits related to the role. This is User:Wiki CRUK John. I’ve also started a project page on Wikipedia at- Wikipedia:WikiProject CRUK. I’ve written articles for the CRUK blog, and the Wikimedia UK blog, the latter also carried by the main US Wikimedia Foundation blog.