Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Computational Biology/14th ISCB Student Wikipedia competition announcement

List of ISCB Core Competencies in Bioinformatics

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and the Computational Biology taskforce of WikiProject Molecular Biology announce the 14th ISCB Student Wikipedia Competition: the competition aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of any topic relating to ISCB's Bioinformatics Core Competencies (see table to the right).

A key component of the ISCB's mission to further the scientific understanding of living systems through computation is to communicate this knowledge to the public at large. Wikipedia has become an important way to communicate all types of science to the public and the ISCB aims to further its mission by increasing the quality of Wikipedia coverage of related topics, and by improving accessibility to this information via Wikipedia.

The competition is open to students and postdocs, either as individuals or as groups.

How to Enter

To enter, you should select the article or articles you intend to work on and record that along with your Wikipedia user name at the Competition Entries web page. If a group of authors intend to contribute to the same article, all Wikipedia user names should be listed.

The competition will open on 1 September 2024 and close on 2 May 2025. For each entry that is claimed in the competition, the difference in quality between these two dates will be reviewed. Contributions made before the opening date or after the closing date will not be counted, although contributions may be made at any point within the competition period.

Entered articles must have a demonstrable link to one (or more) of the ISCB Bioinformatics Core Competencies.

Entrants should ensure that they are contactable during the shortlisting period. Please be sure to enable Wikimedia user email and check your email regularly during this time.

ANNOUCEMENT

In an effort to contribute to inclusivity and cultural balance in computational Biology articles on Wikipedia, the ISCB contest offers two tracks: Global and Non-English track. Winners from each track will receive awards (please see the Prize section).

1. Global track: If you're authoring or editing a Wikipedia article in English, it will be categorized under this track. Articles written in other languages also compete in this category.

2. Non-English track: Articles authored or edited in a language other than English will fall under this track.

Translations will be considered with the following criteria:

— If translating an article from another language, a significant portion of the references for the article should be in the original language. For example, a Spanish-language article on RNA-seq should have a considerable number of references in Spanish.

Non-English articles will be considered for both tracks based on the following criteria:

—An entry is eligible to win on only one track. In case of an article is selected as a winner in both tracks, the competition organizers will assign the article to a single track to maximize the award. If the article ranks the same in both tracks (for example, 2nd in both tracks), the award will be given from the Global track.

Articles

Editing an existing article (recommended)

The Computational Biology taskforce has selected around 1,500 English language articles that it considers within the scope of computational biology and bioinformatics; we strongly suggest that you choose an article from this collection for your entry. Articles are rated for quality by Wikipedia users, based on the following Wikipedia's article quality scale.

A list of 'start-class' quality articles rated as being of high importance for WikiProject Computational Biology is available: any of the articles in this list would be an excellent starting point for a competition entry. Alternatively, a list of the most popular computational biology articles is available: these are generally towards the higher end of the quality scale; however, any improvements to these articles would be more visible. A list of previous winning articles is provided at the end of the page. Below, we list a few previous winning articles that are considered to be of particularly good quality and would be good examples to follow:

• Smith–Waterman algorithm
• RNA-Seq
• Pan-genome

Starting a new article

If you plan to start a new article, please contact the Computational Biology taskforce by adding a new section to the WikiProject Molecular Biology talk page to make sure the article would be considered within the scope of the project.

Non-English language articles are also welcome. These articles may be original articles, or they can also be translations of Wikipedia articles between languages. Please note on the entry page if the article is a translation.

Prizes

For both the Global and Non-English tracks, the ISCB is generously offering the following prizes for the best Wikipedia articles:

• 1st Prize: $500 (USD) and a 1-year membership to the ISCB.

• 2nd Prize: $250 (USD) and a 1-year membership to the ISCB.

• 3rd Prize: $150 (USD) and a 1-year membership to the ISCB.

Training

To make the best possible contribution to Wikipedia, it is important to understand what content is desirable there and how best to go about editing it. If you're new to Wikipedia, we recommend taking an online training course: User:Rockpocket/Training and Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure are particularly useful.

We also strongly recommend that entrants read the PLOS Computational Biology article describing 10 Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia.

Organization

Competition co-chairs:

• Nelly Sélem-Mojica, Professor of Bioinformatics at National Autonomous University of Mexico
• Tülay Karakulak, PhD student at Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich
• Nicolas Näpflin, PhD student at Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich
• Megha Hegde, PhD student at Kingston University

Steering committee:

• Alastair Kilpatrick, Bioinformatician at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine
• Farzana Rahman, Lecturer in Computer Science at Kingston University, London
• Lonnie Welch, Stuckey Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Ohio University

Nominating committee:

• Will be announced at a later date.

Prize committee:

• Will be announced at a later date.

Rules and Regulations

Rules and Regulations

• The competition is open to trainees and students at any level. Only entries listed on the Competition Entries page will be considered. An entrant or group can participate in both the 'English' and 'Other language' competitions, but at most, two entries in total can be “claimed” per entrant or group. Once an entry is “claimed”, it is considered as out of bounds for other entrants in the context of the competition. However, "claiming" a Wikipedia entry does not provide an entrant with any ownership rights over it; all Wikipedia norms on collaborative editing must be respected. Claiming a Wikipedia article in one language does not stop other entrants claiming the corresponding ones in another language.
• Any entrant may claim a Wikipedia article and edit pseudonymously, but if shortlisted, he or she must identify themselves to one of the judging panel, with proof of student/trainee status, to be eligible for a prize. In the case of a group entry, the group will need to decide and implement how the prize will be distributed among the members. Please note that multiple people editing from one Wikipedia account is not permitted, therefore each member of a group must edit from their own account.
• The following criteria will be used for judging the article entries:
  • Clarity of writing
  • Depth of knowledge of the subject area
  • Relevance to computational biology, based on the WikiProject "importance" rating of the article
  • Quality of figures and photos used to illustrate the article
• All content added to articles during this competition must adhere to the basic policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. This includes:
  • No plagiarism. Material must not be copy and pasted from other sources (including textbooks, journals or websites), but instead should be reformulated in your own words and be appropriately cited.
  • No copyright infringement. Images, figures, graphs or text may not be used if under copyright with a non-free licence. Only files available through Wikimedia Commons will be considered.

The judges will be assessing this, and any article found to have plagiarized text or to contain non-free material under copyright will be disqualified. Please note that it is permissible to translate a Wikipedia article from one language to another but this has to be indicated.

For educators and course coordinators

This competition provides an excellent training opportunity and we encourage its use as a class assignment. Tips for educators wishing to incorporate the editing of Wikipedia articles into their courses have been published in a recent PLOS Computational Biology Ten Simple Rules article. Course organisers should also consider adding any such classroom uses in the Wikipedia Schools and University programme:

• Wikipedia:School and university projects