Get updates for changes to particular pages in Physiopedia.
- Login to Physiopedia
- Go to the page that you are particularly interested in
- Click on the History tab at the top of the page
- Then click on Toolbox
- Then click on Atom
- This will give you the feed for that particular page. Copy the URL (web address) and add it to your feed reader to receive updates for any changes made to this page or use this URL to add the feed to your website.
Now you will see all updates for that particular page in your feed reader or on your website as they occur.
Using Templates in Physiopedia
If you are creating a number of pages that have standard texts that you want to include, for example the same subheadings or a message at the top of the page, you may wish to create a template.
Templates are standard wiki pages whose content is designed to be transcluded (embedded) inside other pages. Templates follow a convention that the name is prefixed with “Template:” besides this, you can create them like any other wiki page.
The simplest use of templates is as follows. If you create a page called “Template:Welcome” with contents:
Hello! Welcome to the wiki.
you’ll have created your first template! If you then insert the code:
{{Welcome}}
in any other page, when that page is viewed the text “Hello! Welcome to the wiki.” will appear instead of {{Welcome}}. The template content is “transcluded” into the other page, i.e. it is integrated in the page.
You can then insert {{Welcome}} at any point of any page where you wish to welcome someone. Suppose it is used in 100 pages. If you then change the template contents to:
Hi there! Welcome to this wonderful wiki.
and revisit any of the 100 pages where the template was used, you’ll see the new text instead of the original one. In this way, you have changed the content of 100 pages without editing them, because the template is transcluded into these pages.
This is the basic mechanism. There are several additional features of transclusion that enrich this mechanism and make templates very useful.
Editing transcluded templates
If you wish to edit the template that has been transcluded on to each page individually, for instance if you are creating a set of subheadings on a page that will subsequently have different content added under each subheading, you will need to add the template to the page by inserting the code:
{{subst:Name}} i.e. {{subst:Welcome}}
this replaces the string {{subst:Name}} with the contents of the template, in the source of the transcluding page, when you save that page; the copy of the template contents can then be edited normally (and separately from the original in the template page). Note: don’t use this if you are looking to continually propagate changes from the source template to the page(s) that references it.
Add your template to the ‘Templates’ page
Once you have created a template it is a good idea to record your new template on the ‘Templates’ page so that other people can use it or to remind yourself of the name that you gave it!
Custom Physiopedia search for Mac users
If your a Mac user and would like a quick and easy way to search Physiopedia without having to open up your browser, take a look at this great video by Mike Pascoe…
Setting Up a Custom Search for physiopedia in Alfred from Mike Pascoe on Vimeo.
Wish I had a Mac!!
Looking for images to use?
Adding images to article pages in Physiopedia is a great idea! Not only do they make the page look nicer and help to engage the reader with the topic, they can also help to improve the readers understanding of the topic.
There are so many pictures out there on the web which we could use, but it is important in Physiopedia that we have permission to copy them before we use them. This is not often possible with pictures that are randomly found however there are a few good image libraries out there that have images that we can use. We recommend searching these libraries for images to decorate your page:
- Wikimedia Commons – A database of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. They have some good anatomy images including the full collection from Grays.
- Welcome Images – The Biomedical Collection holds over 40 000 high-quality images from the clinical and biomedical sciences. Selected from the UK’s leading teaching hospitals and research institutions, it covers disease, surgery, general healthcare, sciences from genetics to neuroscience including the full range of imaging techniques.
Both of these image libraries release most of their images under the Creative Commons Licence which allows users to copy, distribute and display the freely downloadable version of the image under the terms of this licence. It is important that when you upload an image from either of these sources to Physiopedia that you always add an attribution to the provider in the summary box. When a reader then clicks on an image in Physiopedia they will be taken to a specific Physiopedia page for that image where the attribution can be seen. For added attribution you could also reference it on the page in Physiopedia that you add it to!
Adding References
Physiopedia uses the Vancouver style of referencing as this is the style used in most leading medical journals. When, in your work, you have used an idea from a book, journal article, etc. you must acknowledge this in your text. This is referred to as ‘citing’. Each piece of work which is cited in your text should have a unique number, assigned in the order of citation. If, in your text, you cite a piece of work more than once, the same citation number should be used.
To cite a piece of work in Physiopedia follow these instructions:
- At the point where you wish to cite a piece of work, click on <R> in the toolbar of the editing box.
- A new editing box will pop-up on your screen.
- In this box you should write the reference in the ‘reference text’ box. Please use the Vancouver style of referencing.
- Then add a reference name. This could be ‘Smith and Jones’ or ‘Smith et al’ for example.
- Then click OK.
- Once you save the page that you are editing the reference for your cited piece of work will automatically appear at the bottom of the page.
If you wish to cite peice of work more than once on the same page:
- Complete the steps above for the first citation of that piece of work. When you come to cite the same piece of work again click on <R> in the toolbar again for the pop-up editing box to appear, but this time you need only fill in the reference name. This should be the same name that you gave to the reference the first time you cited it.
- If you do not know the name that has been given to the reference, for example if someone else added it, you can find it in the wikitext. Click on the wikitext link in the toolbar of the editing box. Look in the wikitext for the reference that you wish to cite for a second (or multiple) time. It should start with <ref name=”reference name”>
where “reference name” is the name that you are looking for. - If it does not have a reference name i.e. it just starts with <ref> and ends with </ref> you can add a reference name yourself by adding name=”reference name” inside the first <ref> tag so that it looks like this <ref name=”reference name”>.
For further explanation and more on Vancouver Referencing have a look at the Adding References user tutorial.
