Ten simple rules for designing learning experiences that involve enhancing computational biology Wikipedia articles

Wikipedia is the largest and most visited encyclopedia on the World Wide Web [1]. Wikipedia is frequently accessed as an educational resource in computational biology, with the articles on Bioinformatics and CRISPR being viewed 413,000 and 1.18 million times, respectively, in 2019 [2]. However, academics remain skeptical of Wikipedia as a reliable source of knowledge [3]. A common complaint by educators is the perceived lack of quality of information found on Wikipedia. Some educators also worry that the platform discourages deeper learner engagement, providing learners with a crutch instead of ways to engage in rigorous, secondary research within a discipline. Both of these concerns often overshadow the advantages of free and readily available knowledge. Given that Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites and an established platform for knowledge seekers, it makes sense to address these concerns and help learners make the most of what they would do anyway. Mentored contributions from students to open platforms like Wikipedia offer opportunities for improved rigor, quality, depth, and reliability of the information indexed and make it relatable to a wide audience. There have been stellar examples of such mentored contributions, resulting in well-curated additions to domain-specific knowledge amenable for consumption by both public and specialist audiences. For instance, educators around the world have mentored students to either improve or create Wikipedia articles and enter the annual International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) Wikipedia Competition, a grassroots initiative designed to improve the coverage and depth of computational biology topics [4,5]. Entries are judged based on the quality of writing, figures, and depth of subject knowledge [6]. Winning entries have included important topics in computational biology, such as chromosome conformation capture [7], molecular phylogenetics [8], and the Ruzzo-Tompa algorithm [9]. Some educators have gone further, replacing the writing of traditional term papers with the rigorous editing or creation of new articles in Wikipedia, resulting in class assignments that enhance a vital, publicly accessible resource of field-specific information. Trainees at 24 United States universities participated in a pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program [10] during the 2010–2011 academic year. A 2012 article reviewed the experiences of four professors who participated, each assigning trainees to write Wikipedia articles on a course topic in place of a term paper [11]. Although each professor tailored assignments to her/his particular class, all found the assignments “extremely useful” in improving trainees’ learning. Similar positive outcomes have been reported in other studies, including larger introductory courses of over 100 PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY