Grants:Project/Rapid/Expanding medical student editing Wikipedia electives into Sackler School of Medicine/Report

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Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.


Goals[edit]

We are very pleased about how it went. Amin was able to present to two separate classes of approximately 65 medical students each.

Outcome[edit]

Please report on your original project targets.


Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
To recruit as many students as feasible from the pool of 65 students in each of 2 cohorts We recruited 20 medical students who have enrolled in the new elective course It was impossible to predict how many students would enroll, but we think this is a reasonable yield for this first of it's kind elective in the world
Demonstrate proof-of-concept that other medical schools can successfully embrace the Wikipedia-editing movement We accomplished this. In fact there are now 3 other medical schools in the US that are beginning Wikipedia-editing courses and/or assignments in existing courses


Learning[edit]

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

  • Tacking onto an already planned trip nearby minimized expenses associated with this in-person presentation.
  • Presenting to each cohort of medical students separately (1st years vs. 2nd years) gave an opportunity to customize the presentation to their different levels of understanding.
  • Having med school administrative leadership present was useful to convince the skeptics.

What did not work so well?

  • The timing of the presentation on the first day of the new academic year probably had good and bad aspects. While students were fresh and ready to engage in the topic, they were perhaps also reticent to immediately commit to a longitudinal elective course before getting a better sense of their workload in their other (required) coursework.

What would you do differently next time?

  • As I give other presentations like this to other medical schools and student bodies, I will want to further customize the presentation to the local context.

Finances[edit]

Grant funds spent[edit]

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

The funds were spent as proposed, as follows:

  • Combined expense of Amin's flights (Helsinki to Tel Aviv, and then Tel Aviv to San Francisco) = $1483 USD
  • Hotel accommodations for 1 nights = $38.24 USD

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No as the expenses exceeded the requested amount. But thank you for supporting the portion of expenses that you did! ($1167 USD)

Anything else[edit]

Anything else you want to share about your project?

I remain humbled to be seeding a movement among medical schools globally to embrace Wikipedia. Thank you for supporting me in my efforts.