Co-designing a wiki-based community knowledge management system for personal science.

Area of Science:

• * Personal science and citizen science in health research.
• * Digital health tools and knowledge management systems.
• * Participatory design and community-based research.

Background:

• * Personal science involves self-research for health questions but faces challenges in protocol development and knowledge sharing.
• * Online communities offer support, but systematic knowledge access tools are lacking for personal science practitioners.
• * Existing self-tracking data is often siloed, hindering collective learning and consensus building.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To develop a peer-produced knowledge base supporting personal science practitioners as knowledge consumers and contributors.
• * To apply a participatory design process with personal science practitioners to create a functional platform.
• * To address the need for systematic knowledge access and management within the personal science community.

Main Methods:

• * A participatory design process involving personal science practitioners.
• * Development of the Personal Science Wiki, an open repository for self-tracking projects.
• * User study with 21 participants for platform testing, improvement, and information architecture exploration.

Main Results:

• * Creation of the Personal Science Wiki, an actively used infrastructure for community knowledge management.
• * Identification of barriers to scaling the personal science community.
• * Gained insights into information needs, representations, and architectures for personal health inquiries.

Conclusions:

• * The Personal Science Wiki provides a valuable infrastructure for managing and accessing shared knowledge in personal science.
• * Participatory design effectively engaged practitioners, leading to a usable and relevant knowledge management tool.
• * Understanding user needs and information architectures is crucial for supporting individuals in personal health self-research.