WikiProjectMed:Partnerships
There are various models for partnerships between Wiki Project Med and other organizations.
Personal engagement with Wikimedia projects
The core process by means of which Wikipedia and related Wikimedia projects are developed is when an individual contributes information or media to an encyclopedia article or other information listing. This could mean adding facts to Wikipedia articles, uploading images to Wikimedia Commons, sharing documents at Wikisource, or developing datasets at Wikidata. There are various models by means of which organizations can do this.
Casual member Wikipedia editing
Any organization can encourage its members to contribute to any Wikimedia project just like all the other Wikimedia community members do. No invitation is required. There is no hierarchy. Online trainings are available either from automated tutorials or perhaps through video chat with a person. Anyone who supports the nonprofit mission to provide the sum of all health knowledge to all people in their own language is welcome to contribute without asking or getting permission.
- Translators without Borders encourages its volunteers to translate Wikipedia health articles
- The Association for Psychological Science and the American Sociological Association encourage their members to contribute expertise in psychology and sociology
Wikipedian in Residence
For organizations which are looking for a deeper level of engagement, having one of their staff members become a "Wikipedian in residence" is an option with some precedent. A Wikipedian in residence is someone at an organization who acts as a liaison between that organization and the Wikimedia community. A typical goal of such a position is to share information from an organization's field of expertise on Wikipedia in accord with Wikipedia's community guidelines.
Health organizations which have had staff serve as Wikipedians in Residence include the following:
University partnerships
Wiki Project Med participants have supported thousands of students whose universities and classes have participated in Wikipedia projects, usually through the Wikipedia Education program. See Wiki Project Med/education outreach for more information on this special kind of personal engagement.
Support without personal engagement
Content donations
Organizations may not wish to engage with Wikimedia projects directly, but if they have media which is of interest to Wikipedians, then they may wish to make it more available. Organizations which host Wikipedians in residence frequently do this. Any organization can do this. Here are some examples of this happening:
- BMJ and Cochrane Collaboration shared access to their medical journals with Wikipedians so that academic medical papers could be summarized and cited in Wikipedia articles. Wikipedians can request free subscriptions at The Wikipedia Library
- The Science Museum in London donated 50 images from the museum, including historical images of historical medical devices
- The Wellcome Trust donated thousands of HIV/AIDS education posters in many languages
- Blausen Medical donated many medical images
- Cancer Research UK donated many medical images
- Consumer Reports arranged for most medical societies in the United States to support the addition of their public health messages into Wikipedia
Event hosting
The Wikipedia community is mostly volunteers, and they are enthusiastic about discussing Wikipedia. It is helpful when organizations host Wikipedia community events where people can meet and edit Wikipedia together. These kinds of events happen regularly. Here are some examples:
- emergency medicine meetup at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York
- Meetup at Cancer Research UK in London during the 2014 Wikimania conference
- General community medicine meeting in Washington DC at the United States National Library of Medicine