Wikis: Using Collaborative Platforms in Graduate Medical Education.

Digital medical education has proliferated in the past decade. Advantages include the ability to offer learners flexibility in time and location of their learning, economies of scale, and the personalization of education. This proliferation coincides with the advent of web 2.0 technologies, such as social networks and collaborative content hubs (eg, wikis). The ease-of-use, availability, flexibility, and free or low-cost software and hosting options make wikis an ideal platform for online education. The term wiki is derived from the Hawaiian word meaning ‘‘quick.’’ A wiki is best described as an interconnected collection of pages that allow for organized end-user creation, modification, and management of the content (eg, Wikipedia). Access to these pages and the ability to edit them can be controlled by the webpage administrator. Wiki content is different from blogs in several aspects, most notably in that content is generated and edited by multiple users. Knowledge thus continuously evolves; content changes by end-users allow rapid improvements that are necessary to keep the content correct and up-to-date. All members of the wiki group have privileges to the material, but usually an administrator maintains oversight. Content changes can occur rapidly and from many authors; therefore, wikis have the ability to track modifications and authorship, with the capability to return to previous versions of a page (known as versioning). This tracking feature supports a degree of personal and group accountability. Why Use a Wiki?