Editorial :: Cochrane and Wikipedia: the collaborative potential for a quantum leap in the dissemination and uptake of trusted evidence

Editorial: Cochrane and Wikipedia

October 22, 2013

 

The Cochrane Collaboration has played a pioneering role over the past 20 years in the production and dissemination of high-quality, timely, synthesised research evidence across many areas of health care. However, in order to fully realise Cochrane's vision of a world where this can lead to better health for everyone, proactive strategic alliances are needed to ensure wider dissemination of Cochrane evidence in a manner that better meets the needs of users worldwide.
Wikipedia, the web-based, multilingual, free-content encyclopaedia, is the sixth most visited site, and the most used medical resource, on the Internet.[1,2] In the 12 years since its creation, Wikipedia has grown into one of the largest reference websites, attracting over 500 million unique visitors monthly.[3] With more than 80,000 active voluntary contributors working on over 26 million articles in 285 languages, the potential for Cochrane to reach previously unreached audiences by forging a strategic partnership with Wikipedia is enormous.
There are remarkable similarities in the vision, mission, principles, and strategic goals of the Wikimedia Foundation (the not-for-profit, charitable organisation that manages Wikipedia) and Cochrane. This sets the stage for a working partnership that could help realise the aspirations of both organisations. Wikimedia Foundation's vision of "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge,"[4] echoes the altruism and hope enshrined in Cochrane's vision, and its values of freedom, accessibility and quality, independence, commitment to openness and diversity, transparency, and community as an asset mirror many of Cochrane's founding principles.[5,6] The core policies governing Wikipedia content are that articles should state a neutral point of view (be unbiased); be verifiable (supported by high-quality secondary sources), and contain no original research.[7].....