Collaborate/J2W

J2W

Journal to wiki publication is the process of creating or improving Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity or similar sites by adapting suitably licensed peer-reviewed research, with author attribution and a link to the original paper.

This is made possible by the Creative Commons licences (CC-By, CC-By-SA or CC0) that many open access publishers offer.

Not all research is suitable for journal-to-wiki publication. As well as being peer-reviewed and suitably licensed, a paper or book chapter needs to be suitably broad in its scope to give an overview of current knowledge. Individual pieces of primary research are not usually suitable. However, review papers or other works that review or summarise an area of research are ideal for Wikipedia.

Circular permutation in proteins: a freely-reusable figure used in both a peer-reviewed journal and Wikipedia

Adapting a paper for Wikipedia

The process of converting a paper for Wikipedia involves

• making the language accessible to a lay audience
• explaining technical terms and acronyms on their first appearance, with links to other Wikipedia articles
• adopting the relevant structure, which on Wikipedia means a short lead section summarising the whole article, then sections with headings
• removing subjective or speculative material: Wikipedia's function is descriptive rather than persuasive
• uploading figures to Wikimedia Commons from where they can be included in Wikimedia sites

Advantages

• Bring research to an enormous audience of lay people and academic peers
• Encourage redistribution and translation
• Get credit and citation of the original published paper

Examples

• The PLoS Computational Biology article Circular Permutation in Proteins was adapted into the Wikipedia article Circular Permutation in Proteins.
• Part of the Wikibooks textbook on Transportation Economics was developed from research published by its authors in the Journal of Transport Economics and Policy.
• An obituary of the chimpanzee researcher Emil Wolfgang Menzel, Jr. in PLoS Biology was adapted into a Wikipedia article about Menzel with a photo shared through Wikimedia Commons. Both the article and photo credit and link back to the original obituary.
• Wikipedia's article on Approximate Bayesian computation is built largely on a Topic Page article in PLoS Computational Biology.

Next steps

• If you are in a Jisc-funded project, contact the Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador, Martin Poulter, (martin.poulterwikimedia.org.uk).

This page has been created as part of the 2013-14 partnership between Jisc and Wikimedia UK