Few concepts in information technology create more confusion than Web 2.0. The truth is that Web 2.0 is a difficult term to define, even for web experts. Nebulous phrases like "the web as platform" and "architecture of participation" are often used to describe Web 2.0. Medical librarians suggest that rather than intrinsic benefits of the platform itself, it's the spirit of open sharing and collaboration that is paramount. The more we use, share, and exchange information on the web in a continual loop of analysis and refinement, the more open and creative the platform becomes; hence, the more useful it is in our work....
This tour through Web 2.0 ultimately returns to the idea of using software to create optimal knowledge building opportunities for doctors. The rise of wikis as a publishing medium—especially Wikipedia—holds some unexamined pearls for the advancement of medicine. The notion of a medical wikipedia—freely accessible and continually updated by doctors—is worthy of further exploration. Could wikis be used, for example, as a low cost alternative to commercial point of care tools like UpToDate? To a certain extent, this is happening now as the search portal Trip already indexes Ganfyd, one of a handful of medical wikis being developed....
The web is a reflection of who we are as human beings—but it also reflects who we aspire to be. In that sense, Web 2.0 may be one of the most influential technologies in the history of publishing, as old proprietary notions of control and ownership fall away. An expert (that is, doctor) moderated repository of the knowledge base, in the form of a medical wiki, may be the answer to the world's inequities of information access in medicine if we have the will to create one.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
