Exploiting The Potential Of Wikis: Reflections On Personal Experiences In Using Wikis

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Exploiting The Potential Of Wikis Reflections
On Personal Experiences In Using Wikis
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/
wiki-workshop-2006/

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath

Abstract A brief review of personal experiences
in using Wikis and some reflections of
implications for institutional provision of Wiki
services.
Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk
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Contents

• Making a start Wikalong
• Using Wikipedia
• In-house use Twiki and MediaWiki
• Bundled Wikis Moodle
• Web 2.0 services Writely, WetPaint, Jot, Pbwiki,
  
• Reflections
• Using Wiki To Support Ourselves

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Wikalong
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/
ucisa-wlf-2004-11/discussion-groups/discussion-wi
kis

• Wiki used for workshop on "Beyond Email
  Strategies for Collaborative Working and Learning
  in the 21st Century", Nov 2004
• Wikalong tool used
• Hosted service for annotating Web pages
• Firefox/IE plugin
• Also referrer service
• Experiences
• Easy to use
• Data copied to UKOLN

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Wikipedia
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapper_sword

• Also in Feb 2004 created Wikipedia entry on
  Rapper Sword, a personal interest (not morris
  dancing!)

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In-House Wiki - Twiki

• In 2005 Twiki software installed locally and used
  to support UKOLN's research interest (e.g.
  collaborative discussions on metadata elements by
  international metadata community).
• Twiki then started to be used for other purposes.
  But
• Was it the right tool for other purposes
• Would be get locked in
• Training support issues

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From Twiki To MediaWiki
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/community/in
dex/IWMW2006

• MediaWiki used to support (a) events and (b) JISC
  standards catalogue.

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Experiences of In-House Wikis

• Ideal solution not yet identified
• MediaWiki is liked by techies (MySQL, extensible,
  ) is used in Wikipedia (scalable)
• Patterns of usage not yet established (one Wiki
  or multiple instances)
• Management of MediaWiki extensions may be a
  support issues
• Transclusion (embed content from one Wiki to
  another) sound great but technical issues
  (performance, recursion)
• Usability issues what does home mean?
• How much training, support development do we
  invest?

We have a need for an event which will help to
resolve these issues!
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Let's Try Some More!

• Various externally hosted Wikis used to gain
  experiences of approaches

http//iwmw-barriers.pbwiki.com/
Pbwiki note RSS links to pages (and versions of
pages)
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Bundled Wikis - Moodle

• Do you need dedicated Wiki software, if the
  functionality is provided in other enterprise
  software (VLEs, CMSs, etc.)
• As part of ongoing evaluation of tools,
  approaches, etc., Wiki in Moodle used for
  planning a paper arranging event.

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Licensed Wiki At Event Jot
http//altspring.jot.com/

• Licensed Jot Wiki service used at ALT 2006
  Research Seminar in Holland.
• Used by participants in "Emerging technologies
  the Net Generation" day's event.

Participants described interests in Wiki prior to
events
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Web 2.0 Services Writely

• Writely used for planning paper. This provides
• Word-processing style interface
• Authentication system
• Multiple ways of saving file (publish to Blog
  save locally in various formats)
• RSS disclosure

At one stage (just after Google buy-out) email
authentication didn't work (invalid sender field
meant email was not sent). However message sent
to Writely forum resulted in fix within 2 days
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What Is A Wiki?

• Is Writely a Wiki or a Web-based word processor?
• Is Google Spreadsheets a Wiki fill in values and
  see how the graph alters.

• Thoughts
• Stop confusing things it's like Wikipedia it
  doesn't matter.
• We need to properly scope our Wiki deployment
  exercise otherwise the scientists who wish to
  collaborate build data structure will be unhappy
  with a text-based Wiki service.

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Third Party Services

• Third party tool used on Web site to convert RSS
  to HTML
• On 10 Oct, email received saying page was corrupt
  
• Page fixed and problem investigated documented
• Company had failed to pay bill for domain (admin
  error)!
• Bill was paid domain quickly restored

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Reflections

• Some thoughts
• Support Net generation happy to pick up and use
  various tools vs Oversimplistic
• Authorisation Leave open vs simple authorisation
  vs need for single signon / Shibbolised services
• Usage What do we want to use Wikis for?
• Take-up What will users use Wikis for and hpw
  with they use them (if at all)?
• Key features in selection technical (open
  source, backend database, ) vs user features
  (interface, ease-of-use) vs institutional
  (enterprise software backend integration )
• Outsourcing Evil Thatcherite nonsense vs.
  sensible business decision vs sensible technical
  decision (APIs, Web Services, REST, RSS, )

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Wikis The Wider Community

• We've heard about
• Personal use of Wikis
• Institutional use of Wikis
• In discussion groups on deployment strategies
  let's also discuss use of Wikis to support our
  communities
• Wikis for the support services (library, IT) on
  evaluation of Wikis, deployment and support
  experiences, etc.
• Wikis for case studies on use case scenarios
• If we can't produce sustainable Wikis, can we
  expect this to happen in our institutions?

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Questions?

• Any questions