Week 7 Wikis - Collaborative Portals

Added by Karen Huffman, last edited by Karen Huffman on Aug 20, 2008  (view change)

Table of Contents

16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them. (Estimate of time: 2 hours)

Overview

The purpose of this exercise is to allow you to learn more about wikis and to explore a handful of interesting, innovative wikis.

What is a wiki?

The term wiki was coined by Ward Cunningham in 1995 from Hawaiian words "wiki wiki" meaning quick. The Web-based applications referred to as wikis allow people to add, remove, edit and change content through a browser. The ease of interaction makes wikis an effective tool for organizing content and collaborating on ideas. Wikis are considered a content management system since they share common elements with these types of applications.
Need Help?
Need help or have a question? Leave us a comment or question at the bottom of any page or on our home page's blog, so others who might have the same problem or idea will gain from our interaction. Reminder: You need to be signed into SLA's wiki to leave comments.

Wikis are a class of Web-based applications that share similar functionality including the following:

  • Collaborative model for aggregating and distilling information/knowledge
  • Collaborative software (or wiki engine). This is what powers a wiki. MediaWiki is an example of a wiki engine.
  • Seed wiki around particular topic(s)/focus to facilitate collaboration
  • Easy to use/edit content - no HTML editors/FTP clients required
  • Content management system. Maintains revision history/archive of changes
  • Blog-like areas for "talking" (e.g., comments, discussion, and/or news pages)

Benefits

  • Ease of use.
  • Many voices, shared ideas.
  • Ability to build knowledge bases, aggregate content.
  • Ever growing diverse user community.

Perspectives

Discovery

Review some of the following wikis to get a flavor and feel for how wikis are being used.

Educational/Instructional

Government Knowledge-Bases

Libraries & Other Organizations

Personal Interests


Reflections: Localize your learnings

  • Are you wiki-fied!?! Record what new ideas were spurred as you learned and reviewed some, or all, of the wikis above.
  • How do you envision the different ways in which you might use a wiki within your workplace?
  • If you are unable to apply immediately to your workplace what you have learned, are there ways that you could apply what you've learned about wikis to your professional or personal life?
  • Many of the examples shared above are more United States centric. If you are an international SLA member, please share examples of wikis from your country.

17. Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 sandbox wiki.

Estimate of time: 2 hours

Overview

This exercise is to allow for additional hands-on time within a given wiki environment, specifically Confluence - the wiki selected by SLA for its members. There are additional resources offered if you want to explore more about the wonderful world of wikis!

Reflections: Localize your learnings

  • Log into SLA's wiki. (If you haven't already created an account, you'll need to do this first before logging in.)
  • Review Wikis 101 for help in getting started.
  • Go to...
    • either the SLA Learning 2.0 Sandbox and add a page; OR
    • create your own personal space through your profile's page on SLA's wiki. To create a personal space, click on your display name (top right) >> click on Your Personal Space.
  • Write the three things you have liked best from your learnings on wikis or share examples from your own experience with wikis.
  • Add a link to your favorite wiki, either one that we've listed or one that you've discovered on your own. Share what you like best about the wiki you've listed.
  • Add a photo of yourself to your wiki page.
  • Share your completed page with the other participants.

Challenge

Haven't had your fill just yet of wikis and need to know more? Here are some additional links to fuel your interest:

Shared bookmarks: Wikis

Delicious/tag/wikis
(recent bookmarks tagged wikis)
heightscommunity / FrontPage
YouTube - Wikis in Plain English
History Tours
Learning 2.0
an e-book that explores new Web 2.0 learning possibilities and provides ideas for podcasting, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, social networks, etc.
TechCrunch UK
info.tw.o - Welcome to TikiWiki CMS/Groupware : HomePage
Tiki wiki is a wiki engine with features that seem most attractive for the kinds of things I am doing
The Open Cognition Project - OpenCog
OpenCog aims to provide research scientists and software developers with a common platform to build and share artificial intelligence programs. The long-term goal of OpenCog is acceleration of the development of beneficial AGI, a goal which includes developing tools and protocols for AGI safety. The OpenCog Wiki is used to coordinate development, and to provide a repository for documentation and other technical information.
Tips for Getting Started with Educational Wikis
Treppenwitz – Wikipedia
Web hosting services for Mediawiki: Free MediaWiki installation, MediaWiki tutorial.
Wikileaks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
nets-implementation " home

Labels

 

Comments (4)

 

  1. Sep 11

    Karen Huffman says:

    I have been using wikis for about 56 years. To date my favorite TWO wikis are Me...

    I have been using wikis for about 5-6 years. To date my favorite TWO wikis are MediaWiki, the wiki application Wikipedia uses as well as the one I use for my personal website, and Confluence, the wiki selected by SLA. Both are wonderful applications and have strong support. I think, however, for an organization that wants flexible security models and a scalable solution, Confluence is probably the best choice. Share with us what you think.

  2. Sep 28

    Dianna Roberts says:

    Unfortunately I've had to go with DocuWiki which is what our IT group is using a...

    Unfortunately I've had to go with DocuWiki which is what our IT group is using and I'm not sure that I like it much. It is primarily aimed at IT developers and uses a markup language rather than free text so has no real advantage over the html webpage we were already using.

  3. Nov 25

    Kim Lyall says:

    I created a page on my SLA wiki space but for the life of me I can't figure out ...

    I created a page on my SLA wiki space but for the life of me I can't figure out how to go back and edit a page that has already been "published."  Once you save changes to a page on your SLA Wiki space how do you go back and re-edit?  Is there any Help documentation available for using the SLA wiki personal spaces?  Thanks so much!

  4. Nov 29

    Karen Huffman says:

    Kim, We put together Wikis 101 to help people get started with Confluence (see

    Kim, We put together Wikis 101 to help people get started with Confluence (see http://wiki.sla.org/display/CEWIKI/).There are pointers to more detailed documentation.

    To access your "personal space," there are a handful of ways. Below are two options:

    • Option 1: Click on the link to your name or picture in the above comment.
    • Option 2: Make sure you are signed into SLA's wiki. In the top right corner (near the search), there's a drop-down menu on your name >> select Personal Space. 
    • Option 3: People Directory -- this option is currently not working. Have not received a date as to when this will be fixed. Contact SLA HQ to ask when this feature might be fixed on the wiki.

    You've selected a template that places the page operations on the left sidebar. Click on News Operations >> Edit to change the content on a page.