編輯維基詞條,賺醫學院學分
Medical students at the University of California, San Francisco, will be able to get course credit for editing Wikipedia articles about diseases, part of an effort to improve the quality of medical articles in the online encyclopedia and help distribute the articles globally via cellphones. While professors often incorporate Wikipedia work into classes, hoping that student research can live on online, the university and others say this is the first time a medical school will give credit for such work.
加州大學舊金山分校(University of California, San Francisco)的醫科學生已經可以通過編輯維基百科上有關疾病的文章來修得學分；此舉旨在幫助維基百科提高醫學文章的質量，並幫助他們通過手機把這些文章在全球各地傳播。一直以來，大學教授雖然沒少在課堂上讓學生在維基百科做文章，以此希望他們的研究能延伸到網上，但是據該大學和其他一些人士透露，一所醫學院爲這樣的工作給出學分還是頭一次。"We as a profession have our corpus of knowledge, and we owe it as a profession to educate the lay public," said Dr. Amin Azzam, a health sciences associate clinical professor at the U.C.S.F. School of Medicine who will teach the monthlong elective course in December.
“作爲一門專業學科，我們有自己的知識語料庫，而作爲專業人士，我們有責任向民衆傳授這些知識，”加州大學舊金山分校醫學院(UCSF School of Medicine)的健康科學臨牀副教授阿敏·阿扎姆醫生(Dr. Amin Azzam)表示。這門選修課於去年12月開課，爲時一個月，而阿扎姆醫生是這門課的授課老師。
The course is open to fourth-year medical students and was scheduled for a month when many travel the country for interviews to arrange their residencies, so they need the flexibility to work remotely, Dr. Azzam said. Three students have signed up for the course, but he said that this time was really to test whether the concept was worthy.
他還表示，這門課的開設對象是大四醫科學生，課時一個月；因爲很多學生要在全美四處奔走，參加住院實習的面試，因此需要一定的機動性來遠程參與課程。目前，已經有三個學生選了這門課，但是阿扎姆醫生說，這一次還只是爲了試驗一下這個理念是否可行。
He said he could envision such a course being required for students as they begin studies and must immerse themselves in the details of how the body works, and, at times, stops working.
他說，他能預見這樣一門課程成爲學生的必修課，因爲他們開始學習後，必須全然投入於瞭解人體運作——時不時，還有人體停止運作——的各種細節。Wikipedia editing will force students to think clearly and avoid jargon, he said. "We do a great job in helping them talk to doctors, but we don't do as good a job in helping them speak to the public," he added.
他說，編輯維基百科能夠促使學生清晰地思考，避免晦澀的術語，“在教導他們和醫生溝通方面，我們做得很好，但是在讓他們和公衆交流方面，我們做得還不夠。”他補充說。The students' editing will be part of Wikiproject Medicine, which focuses contributors on the 100 or so most significant medical articles, including those on tuberculosis and syphilis, but especially on those important articles that need the most editing. (The project lists more than 350 active editors, many of whom cite an advanced degree under the header "medical qualification.")
這些學生的編輯工作也將成爲維基醫學項目(WikiProject Medicine)的組成部分；後者讓投稿人集中於一百來篇最有意義的醫學文章，包括有關肺結核和梅毒的文章，但同時把重點放在最需要修改的重要文章上。（該項目已徵集了350多名活躍的編輯人士，其中大多數在“醫學資歷”一欄下面都表示自己具備高等學歷。）These articles are submitted to a group from Translators Without Borders that produces medical articles for Wikipedias in languages spoken in countries that often lack high-quality medical information. Examples include an article in Javanese on dengue fever and one in Hindi on urinary tract infection. Creating these high-quality medical articles fits neatly with efforts by the Wikimedia Foundation to make deals with cellphone carriers to provide Wikipedia content free of data charges, especially in the developing world where cellphones are often the only connection to the Internet.
這些文章會再給提交給“無國界譯者聯盟”(Translators Without Borders)的一個小組，由他們把這些維基百科的醫學文章翻譯成其他語言，尤其是那些缺乏高質量醫療信息的國家語言，譬如一篇有關登革熱的文章就被翻譯成了爪哇語，而一篇有關尿路感染的文章也被翻譯成了印地語。維基媒體基金會(Wikimedia Foundation)也一直想與手機運營商達成協議，讓維基百科的內容在手機上免流量費查看，尤其是在發展中國家，因爲那兒的人們通常只能通過手機上網，而編撰這些高質量的醫學文章與維基媒體基金會這一努力十分契合。"If we want to get high-quality information to all the world's population, Wikipedia is not just a viable option, but the only viable option," Dr. Azzam said.
“假如我們想向全世界傳輸高質量的信息，維基百科不僅是一個可行的選擇，而且是唯一可行的選擇，”阿扎姆醫生說。He credited one of his former students, Dr. Michael Turken, 32, a first-year resident in internal medicine at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, with helping to conceive of the course.
關於這門課的醞釀，阿扎姆醫生表示他要感謝自己從前的一位學生——32歲的邁克爾·特爾肯醫生，他現在斯坦福大學醫院診所(Stanford Hospital and Clinics)內科部擔任第一年住院醫師。Dr. Turken said the importance of Wikipedia's medical information became clear to him a couple of years ago when a friend asked him how long H.I.V. tests could give false negative readings.
特爾肯醫生說，他是從幾年前開始意識到維基百科提供的醫學信息有多重要，當時他的一個朋友問了他一個問題，那就是HIV測驗給出的假陰性讀數可以持續多久。A Wikipedia entry said two weeks, and "that didn't seem right," he said. "I checked with the literature, and it is up to 28 days, based on the test." He made the change, then looked at how many people read the article a month — often tens of thousands. Rather than be offended at the open access to Wikipedia pages, Dr. Turken said he found it "very reassuring that it is a collaborative effort," with many people checking what is written.
當時維基百科的一條記錄說是兩個星期，但特爾肯醫生表示：“那好像不太對頭。我查了相關文獻，根據測驗來看可以長達28天。”於是，特爾肯醫生對這條維基百科的內容作了改動，然後觀察了一下一個月裏有多少人看到這篇文章——結果是成千上萬人。對於維基百科這樣開放編輯權限的做法，特爾肯醫生並沒有覺得不妥，而是認爲正因爲有這麼多人來查看而使得它“非常可靠，因爲這是衆人合作的成果”。Dr. Azzam said the details of the course were still being worked out. He said he planned to see the students for two days at the start to plot the writing and editing requirements, then track their work on Wikipedia. While some might fear that his students would cut corners, Dr. Azzam said: "I am working with medical students — professionals in training — who are highly motivated. I'm not worried about them slacking."
阿扎姆醫生表示，這門課的具體細節還待完善，但他透露，他在課程一開始拿出了兩天的時間和學生會面，並制定編寫（維基百科內容）的具體要求，然後通過網絡在維基百科追蹤他們的成果。至於有些人擔心他的學生可能會“偷工減料”，阿扎姆醫生表示：“我的授課對象都是醫科學生，他們是接受培訓的專業人士，目標明晰動力十足，我纔不會擔心他們偷懶。”
