Content Evaluation, Usage Profile, and Student Preferences Related to a Medical Student Wiki for Student-Authored Learning Resources (Carverpedia)

Abstract

We identified a lack of continuity in student-generated learning aids and the sharing of advice and resources between medical graduating classes. Carverpedia, built in the UIowa Wiki platform, is a novel collaboration between pre-clinical medical students and faculty to produce a centralized location for learning aids at the Carver College of Medicine. Carverpedia is designed to organize files and links in a centralized location accessible to all students. Previously, items were shared through various modalities (e.g., Facebook, email, etc.) without equal access for every student or well-developed archiving. After one academic year of use, there were 217 resources posted to the wiki site by 34 authors. Content posted on Carverpedia differed from Facebook content, with increased content summaries and active-learning. Site utilization, collected by Google Analytics, found 2979 sessions on Carverpedia and a total of 10,253 page views. Site usage and posting of resources was highly correlated with basic science exam schedule. This corresponded with the students surveyed on site usage, with the majority of students using Carverpedia for basic science courses, like Gross Anatomy and Foundations of Cellular Life. Of note, surveyed students found faculty-authored content, practice questions, content summaries, and active-learning resources the most useful of the resources posted. Overall, we found the Wiki format is effective as a means of creating an online community of support and collaboration for student-authored and faculty-authored learning resources.