wikis

We have finished our research until the new Content Management System is chosen. Our research did allow us to explore several wikis and the web editing space which they share with both blogs and web editors.

Our leading contenders are:

• Confluence which Matt installed at http://sandbox.wesleyan.edu:8080/
• The Blackboard wiki which is part of the Blackboard learning system.

We rejected the following wikis:

• Dokuwiki - currently used by Wesleyan. It is not wysiwyg. The add-on to make it wysiwyg did not work robustly.
• Media Wiki - currently used by Wikipedia. Lacks the ability to create secure workgroups.
• Drupal - The wiki tool within Drupal is no longer being developed.

Once the Content Management System (CMS) is chosen, we will compare Confluence and Blackboard to the tool within the CMS. We can also reopen the research to include other wikis.

Thank You to the members of the wiki evaluation team: Pat Leone, Ryan Lee, Brandi Hood, Deb Treister, Dan Pflederer, Mary Glynn and Matt Elson

Demonstrations

• Edit an item on Wikipedia - the Group
• Dokuwiki - how Wesleyan is using it + wysiwyg
• Media Wiki - Pat and Steve (Matt will put it back in place – the security is lacking)
• Confluence - Steve
• Drupal - Pat
• Guest Speaker - Matt

Research Results

• Report Back on Discussions with Williams and Amherst - Pat and Steve

• Brandi Hood, Ryan Lee, Pat Leone, Steve Machuga, Dan Pflederer, Deb Treister

Here we'll be writing up what the requirements are. (We hope to gather examples of such requirements from other schools via a survey.)

One use we might have for a wiki is to set up professional profile web spaces that faculty can edit themselves without having to use desktop software. For these purposes the wiki should offer:

1. fine-grained editing permissions (ideally integrated with LDAP)
2. an intuitive WYSIWYG editing interface
3. option to edit html directly
4. WYSISYG should yield valid xhtml
5. a simple interface for creating additional pages
6. site navigation is created automatically
7. save as draft option
8. templating options
9. CSS friendly
10. integration with blog?
11. generates RSS feeds
12. intuitive interface for attaching files
13. ability to manage metatags for some measure of search engine optimization
14. there should be a staging area to save prior to publication. (added by the wiki group)
15. an ability to search or organize the wiki index. (added by the wiki group)

1. MediaWiki – Used to maintain Wikipedia.
   • I installed MediaWiki like over a year ago on one of the servers, but it looks like we either finally removed it or locked people out for security. If people want to take a look at it, I can fairly easily bring it back from the dead and make the modification/configuration changes requested — Matthew Elson 2007/01/20 22:28
2. dokuwiki – Used in pilot wiki project at Wes (I am typing in it right now!)
3. Drupal
   • Again, this has been installed for awhile and has a few plugins in already (including the LDAP part). You can take a look at it if you want, and if you'd like to be able to contribute, drop me an email and I can add you to the admin group (which is only me and Phil Isaacs now) — Matthew Elson 2007/01/20 21:46
4. Confluence – Williams uses it to maintain their ITS pages (We need to talk to them about this).
   • Worth noting that Confluence was highly recommended by V 'bout a year ago - definitely warrants investigation — Matthew Elson 2007/01/20 21:44
   • Pricing Information

An extensive list can be found at WikiEngines

1. editme.com
2. writely.com (part of google)
3. PBWiki
4. wikispaces
5. Wikia

At Wesleyan
dokuwiki
wiki within blackboard
wiki within trac
Elise Springer in the Philosophy department uses a specialized wiki for a combination personal/professional/course management site. Some parts are locked down but a lot is open at http://espringer.web.wesleyan.edu/.

who else?

Elsewhere University of Michigan Penn State University of Minnesota

where else?

wiki & rss –> subscribe to wikis and be notified of changes via RSS. How cool is that?

There has been some independent consideration of how the research subject guides of the future might look. Wikis might be an excellent way to create collaborative guides on specialized topics. They needn't be open to editing by the world. Such a guide, with a narrow focus, could be an excellent class project, for example. The idea is still speculative, but see the links below for signs of water-testing (not limited to higher ed).

http://donnadesroches.ca/2006/02/09/wiki-pathfinders/
http://www.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca/pathfinders/StartHere
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://techinquiry.wikispaces.com/
http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page

This entry of the Web 2.0 Teaching Tools blog highlights a couple (wiki-based) social networking services for college students, instructors, and alums.

Here is an example of using a wiki as a course website (from Ursinus)