Whither the Wikis? With your help, not the case for Physiopedia.
I came across this article recently on the Inside Higher Ed website and thought it a pertinent and interesting read in relation to what we are doing in Physiopedia. The article suggests that “it is becoming clearer where wikis are jibing with the culture of academe, and where they are not” and suggests that many of the academic wikis have failed to take off. A good time to talk about the academic successes and opportunities in Physiopedia.
We like to think of Physiopedia as an “academic wiki” in that we advocate evidence based content, have students completing academic work on the site and also allow our community to publish research and other academic work. As far as students completing classroom work in Physiopedia these projects have been a great success. So far six student projects have been completed in Physiopedia with great results and great feedback from tutors and students alike. Some have successfully been for academic credit and most have resulted in great content being produced for our profession. This looks like it is set to continue with more and more educators and their students becoming involved from all over the world.
With regards to publishing academic work (i.e. research) in Physiopedia it is still early days. For this to be a success we need, as suggested by the article, an overhaul in the way we think about publication. In my opinion publishing academic work in a professional topic specific wiki has a place along side traditional means of publishing in journals. Researchers can benefit from greater exposure and discussion surrounding their work, we can bridge the gap between completing research and publication and also provide an opportunity for publication to those that don’t want to go through the rigorous process of publishing work in a journal, a good example of this being student dissertations.
The opportunity to publish research in Physiopedia increases the impact of scholars, students, and bloggers by enabling them to share summaries and discuss academic papers online. The subsequent opportunity for open peer review then provides a place where academic papers can be summarized, discussed, clarified, or made fuller by the general community. Surely this collaborative activity surrounding academic work is a great way to highlight and discuss new research and subsequently provide evidence and support (or not!) for what we do.
Key to all of this is continuous support from our Physiopedia community. So if you have some research that you would like to publish in a new way, or an abstract from previously published work that would benefit from discussion among the community please do get in touch….
Publish Research in Physiopedia
Physiopedia now offers an open opportunity for you to publish your research.
The open and collaborative nature of Physiopedia offers an ideal opportunity for the publication of physiotherapy and physical therapy research, including work that might otherwise not get published. We are happy for you to publish your original research in Physiopedia, include a summary of your research prior to publication in a peer reviewed journal or to publish your student dissertation.
This is a great way of publicising student work, supporting new researchers and bridging the gap between completing research and publication. We welcome all types of research to be published in Physiopedia including randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and case studies.
As a wiki which can be edited by physiotherapists and physical therapists from all over the world, Physiopedia lends itself as a good solution to open peer review of research. Each piece of research in Physiopedia has it’s own page, at the bottom of this page is a section for Physiopedia users to make comments and discuss the research.
Things to do in the new research section of Physiopedia:
Read Research in Physiopedia
The research section in Physiopedia is similar to that seen on journal websites to maintain a recognisable format. When research is added it will be included under the year/date at the time of inclusion.
See the Physiopedia Research – Table of Contents
Submit Research to Physiopedia
There are two ways in which you can add your research to Physiopedia:
All submissions should be submitted in the requested format. See submission guidelines.
Peer Review Research in Physiopedia
To review a piece of research that has been published in Physiopedia you should: go to the page for the piece of research that you wish to review, find the review section at the bottom of this page and add your comments as new bullets points in this section. All we ask is that when you make comments on other peoples research please respect their work and only provide critical reviews that are constructive. The review section of each research article will be moderated by our quality assurance and peer review team.
See how to peer review an article
If you would like to join the Physiopedia research peer review team, let us know.
We hope that this new feature offers an great opportunity to publish all types of physiotherapy and physical therapy research and that the community will collaborate to peer review the published research.
