The Fight for Free Trust Worthy Education

Physiopedia has long led the way for creating and promoting free scientific peer-review content created by experts globally. 

Professors and academic institutes around the world are now buying in to this idea. Wikipedia has been around since 2001 and with 500 million readers globally there is no doubting its power as an educational tool. No matter the topics size be it minuscule or enormous it will have a page on Wikipedia. The volume is there, the content creators are there but sometimes the quality is not.

Alice Michel righted this wrong in her respective field of Geobiology and edited an entire page on wikipedia. After reading dozens of papers, years of notes and asking peers she wrote a 4,200 word article. It was topped off with diagrams, photos and hyperlinks. It turns out hundreds of students from 240 college classrooms are doing the same improving the pages related to their own academic interests as part of coursework for qualifications.  Some institutions are even offering qualifications in Wikipedia editing.

Educational projects like this have been around since 2009 on Physiopedia with Universities and Professional organisations working alongside Physiopedia to create the best Physiotherapy resource available. Physiopedia has had long and successful relationships with institutions to put both significantly ahead of the game. The projects are ever growing and have a substantial following with very positive feedback whilst being able making a lasting contribution to the profession. A list of all of the projects can be found here.

Currently Queen Margaret University have compulsory elements of the MSc and BSc courses contributing to Physiopedia. Students work collaboratively to critically appraise issues of physiotherapy practice, reflect on their learning and create an online resource for their chosen issue on Physiopedia. Many excellent resources have been created from this project including this article about Frailty. Students learn a multitude of academic skills along the way.

The University of Nottingham have a similar type of project running as part of their BSc course in Physiotherapy with the focus being spinal conditions. This is complimented by the Pathophysiology of Complex Patient Problems which is made in collaboration with Bellarmine University. This is only a sample of some of the projects and institutions involved, a list of them would be overwhelming. There are 20 completed projects as well as the 17 currently running

Nowhere else will you find this volume of the best most trustworthy free resource. It is a must see. Physiopedia as the benchmark for all professional specific wiki projects.

How has Physiopedia affected your practice? Make sure you tell us on social media and in the comments below.