Authors: Hector Gabriel Corrale de Matos1, Adriano Jorge Soares Arrigo1 , Priscila Carvalho Cruz1 , Maria Julia Ferreira Cardoso1, Kátia de Freitas Alvarenga1, Thais C. Morata2, Daniel Mietchen3, Lilian Cássia Bórnia Jacob1
- 1University of São Paulo
- 2Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
- 3Ronin Institute
Background: To systematize the information available through the Wikimedia projects, Wikidata emerges as a volunteer-created knowledge base of structured, organized, and categorized data. Wikidata’s content is open and compatible with semantic web technologies and provides tools for information curating. In this context, an emerging usage of Wiki projects is in the area of audiology. An example of this approach is the global campaign Wiki4WorldHearingDay2019, which reported 2.8 million views of 90 edited or newly created Wikipedia articles. Hence, exploring the possibilities of Wikidata for data curation and information structuration in audiology may provide new perspectives on knowledge diffusion and health communication.
Methods: Exploratory research was conducted for the term “hearing loss” on Scholia and Wikidata. Scholia is a freely accessible platform based on Wikidata that allows users to identify key information related data on a topic. Wikidata’s information has some attributes: item (representations of knowledge), label (unique identifier), description (item details), alias (item alternative title), statement (item information), property/value (data category), and references (statement source).
Results: The item Q16035842 on Wikidata is referred by the label “hearing loss” and it has the description “form of hearing disorder”, alias noted as “hypoacusis/hearing impairment”, “instance of” statement to “health problem” property and 12 identifiers and references. Scholia’s hearing loss page shows a table of contents related to the topic such as publications per year, topic authors, citations, and co-occurring themes, all of which can be graphed and data visualized. It provides multiple starting points for exploring and curating hearing health-related content.
Conclusions: Wikidata enables information access on a topic in a scalable and structural form that may empower knowledge dissemination actions in audiology.
