The Science Behind Parkinson's/Project Development/doc1

The Science Behind Parkinson's Disease: A Wikiversity Learning Project

Objective: To enable people affected by Parkinson's
 * (patients, carers, professionals and others)


 * who are keen to follow progress in research into Parkinson's,
 * to share what they have learnt
 * by writing about it in accessible language
 * and making it available as a constantly updateable on-line resource

Methods: The open, global, non-proprietary medium of Wikiversity has been chosen as a feature-rich platform for establishing a structured resource which anyone can add to and amend.

The project aims to attract people who are already personally attempting to following the progress of Parkinson's research. This includes many with the ability to explain complex scientific ideas and write about them in language understandable by the non-specialist.

The value of this project is to enable such people to share what they discover and make it available in a structured way to the wider Parkinson's community, revealing the most promising and productive areas of research.

The wiki format, by which people can build on the work of others and can add fresh material, is an ideal vehicle for this. A wiki can allow references to be made to source documents and other background information and thus help to ensure accuracy and scientific integrity.

Results: This Wikiversity learning project has been set up at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/ParkinsonsScience and already a lot of high-quality, interesting and interlinked material has been amassed by a small number of active volunteers.

The main section is for tracking Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research and is arranged by topics within fields of research.

There is a Magazine subsection for standalone articles on particular research advances where ideas and opinions can be aired and discussed.

There is also an Introduction to Parkinson's Science which offers a step-wise path through the subject for those new to it.

Others are warmly invited to explore the project and to join the growing band contributing material to it.

Researchers and health professionals are invited to help too so that the material included is of the highest quality and accuracy.

(Wikiversity is one of the Wikimedia Foundation range of projects which includes Wikipedia and Wiktionary)