# WikiVet - Veterinary curriculum online

*[![WikiVet Logo](https://hawksey.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/wiki.png)](http://www.wikivet.net/)"Content is king, community is sovereign"* these were the words left ringing in my ears from a keynote given by Stephen Heppell back in 2002. At that time one of the most well known community sites [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/) was in its infancy. Since then Wikipedia has flourished and with over 2.5 million articles (in English) making the job or door-to-door encyclopedia sales increasingly difficult. A similar concept is being used in the [WikiVet](http://www.wikivet.net) project, designed to be the most comprehensive knowledge base for veterinary students.

**UPDATE:** The quote should be *“Content is no longer king, but community may be sovereign”*. [Stephen has kindly corrected me, see comments](https://hawksey.info/blog/2008/10/wikivet-veterinary-curriculum-online/#comments).

 
WikiVet, a partnership between the [Higher Education Academy](http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/), [JISC](http://www.jisc.ac.uk) and UK veterinary schools, plans to cover the entire vet curriculum from pathology to physiology. They already have a wealth of information including images, videos, case simulators, interactive PowerPoints, flashcards and more. Unlike Wikipedia, content is peer reviewed by subject specialists and access to view or edit is restricted to the vet community.

Interestingly the current contents of the site has not only been generated by academics at different vet schools but also by students. This project, while only officially launched today (9th October), has already received commitment from other European veterinary schools and interest from schools in the US.

Will the vet community continue to add to this resource. If Wikipedia's predecessor [Nupedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia#Formulation_of_the_concept) is anything to go by which had a similar peer review process it might be a challenge. However, considering the existing content in WikiVet it already looks a valuable resource.

[WikiVet](http://www.wikivet.net) is available for general review for one month. Login 'launch' and password 'press'.

[Click here for the official press release on WikiVet](http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/news/detail/wikivet_launch).