Australian-based wiki Radiopaedia has emerged as one the first success story in applying the collaborative software to medical imaging.

by Stuart Hall

Australian-based wiki Radiopaedia has emerged as one the first success story in applying the collaborative software to medical imaging - to such an extent it is now advertising for speciality editors.

The aim of Radiopaedia.org is to develop an online text where information is up to date and relevant to the needs of radiology staff, both registrars and consultants. In addition, the wiki format allows discussion of topics and resolution of areas of confusion. Now as the site has grown, nearing the 500 article milestone, founder Francesco Gaillard says it has become necessary to increase the editorial team, and as a result section editor positions are available.

 

Dr Francesco Gaillard Photo: Radiopaedia.org

"The appointment is for a minimum of six months, and along with editing and moderating a section ( e.g chest, or gastrointestinal) there is the expectation of a small amount of regular contribution. I expect that at current levels of traffic, this would amount to no more than one hour or so per week.

"It is a great way to add to a curriculum vitae, with little work while actually contributing something to a resource used by thousands."

Gaillard reports that growth has been steady, with this month seeing the 100th registered user, 1500 unique visits, almost 10,000 page views and rapidly approaching the 500th article milestone (as of now 482): "I have had a number of requests to use images from the site in theses, proving that there is a need and demand for creative-commons-licence content.

"Although there is a lot of interest and positive feedback, contributors are always hard to find, and for some the current 'mediawiki' (the same software used by wikipedia) interface is a little cumbersome. I am hopeful that sponsorship will be forthcoming to redesign the user interface to make this easier and more tailored to the specific needs of a radiology site.

"This redesign is the main aim for the next 12 months as well as setting up a core group of section-editors. I have received interest for many of the sections, and the first round of appointments will be made in the next few weeks!"

While there are many worthwhile online resources already available for radiologists, however most are not collaborative and therefore lack the ability to respond to users needs. The advantage of using wiki software to host a website is that anyone can create an article. Anyone can edit an existing one. Contributions remain logged to your name, and can be included in your CV, along with a link to your user page.

Due to the immediacy of editing, new information can be introduced immediately when it becomes available. Errors can be corrected immediately, with no need to wait for the next edition. All the content is licensed under creative commons which allows for non-commercial use of all content, while maintaining attribution privileges for contributors of images.

Click here for the Radiopaedia site.