Wiki

The educational technology and digital learning wiki
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Definition

A wiki is a powerful collaborative tool that allows users to add and edit content on-line. User can also easily create new pages. If necessary it's possible to add some permissions to the pages (lock pages or only identified users can modify the content of a page). The first wiki servers were created around 1995.

Definition from the Wikipedia:Wiki:

A wiki is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit all content, very quickly and easily, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website (see wiki software), or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (and original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. When used to refer to a specific site, wiki is often capitalized.

The word wiki is a shorter form of wiki wiki (weekie, weekie) which is from the native language of Hawaii (Hawaiian), where it is commonly used as an adjective to denote something "quick" or "fast" (Hawaiian dictionary). In English, it is an adverb meaning "quickly" or "fast".

The main purpose of wikis is to create a space where people can collaborate in writing a same text on a single topic and relate this text to other texts. An other main purpose of many wikis is sharing knowledge for a common good (e.g. as in the Wikipedia project.

See also: wiki book, mediawiki and some other entries in the category writing.

What is a wiki ?

Explanation by example: This website is powered by a wiki. If you want, you can modify this page by changing words, sentences or sections or by adding information.

Technical features from a user perspective

Collaborative online editing

A wiki enables documents to be written collectively using a web browser, usually with a very simple markup language.

In order to make this work, owners of a wiki should think hard about wiki management policies. Educators need to carefully plan an appropriate instructional design.

A simple editing syntax

Editing content on a wiki is usually very simple, users have to learn a small syntax. However, some wikis like this one use an increasingly complex syntax, e.g. for this mediawiki see How to edit a page). Even though, users still have the option to work with a very small subset, as demonstrated in the Wikipedia Chatsheet.

In addition, most mediawiki-based sites use a sometimes huge library of templates. E.g. this wiki has only few, lots !

There is no standard Wiki syntax. Each Wiki Software has its own, although some types of Wikis are very close. Some isolated Wikis even use HTML instead of the traditional Wiki Syntax or allow combination of HTML codes with wiki coding. WYSIWYG through the web editors (TTW) also start becoming popular.

Page History

  • Usually either all edits are kept in history and users can undo changes or compare changes.

Easy page creation and links

Wikis allow for quick page creation and linking (see below)

Wikis as hypertext system

  • Wikis are one a few true hypertext systems still alive on the Web and this explains also part of their success.
  • It is very easy to link from one page to another. Originally, most Wikis used a CamelCase linking mechanism, but this syntax makes reading more difficult and certainly deviates from standard spelling. Therefore, most Wikis use a syntax like
[[Hypertext]] which will show as Hypertext

or if users want to replace the title's page by some else something like: 

[[Hypertext | Article about hypertext]] which will show like Article about hypertext.
  • Some Wikis add other navigational features, e.g. a search facility or categories. In this wiki:
    • You can search either titles or full text ("Go" or "search" button) in the box to the left
    • You can add an article to a category, in order to add this article to the technologies category, we used the command:
[[Category:Technologies]]

Wiki software architectures

Most Wikis are implemented as server-side www scripts. This includes the following components:

  1. A webserver like Apache.
  2. Most implementations are done in PHP but some use other programming/scripting languages such as Perl, Python, Java, etc.
  3. A database server like MySQL, but some Wikis use a file-based system.

Therefore, a typical Wiki runs under the LAMP bundle.

Some Wikis are embedded within portals, e.g. some LMS include a wiki.

A simple typology of Wikis

No wikis

Sometimes, the wiki concept is misused. Here are some examples of non-wikis:

  • Simple CMS modules in portalware that have wiki-like features (but lack important wiki features such as easy page creation and linking)
  • Web site generators like Google sites
  • On-line word processing tools like Zoho Writer or Google docs

A wiki favors hypertext, e.g. features easy linking to other pages and a "flat" non-hierarchical organization of pages. Content management systems that do no not respect this principle are not wikis. Of course, wiki administrators may add hierarchical navigation aids on top (e.g. super-categories or various "menus").

Wiki management

Policy

  • Generally, most sites require that some editing rules for style and content organization are respected. The goal of these rules are to standardize organization of contents within a page or throughout the wiki, in order to make both knowledge retrieval and production easier.
  • Frequently, Wikis also adopt guidlines for co-editing. Wiki administrators have to pay attention to both new new users having sometimes difficulties to adapt to the wiki paradigm (everybody can do what they want respecting other's work) and persons that do not easily fit into a local "spirit".
  • There is an increasing problem with vandalism and therefore many Wikis require at least a login to edit. Educational wikis now tend to exclude external users from editing, since there is a lack of manpower to survey pages.

Wiki design patterns

Wikis in education

this needs more work ! - DSchneider 22:07, 12 June 2006 (MEST)
  • Kevin R. Parker & Joseph T. Chao. (2007)Wiki as a Teaching Tool.Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects Volume 3, 2007.pdf a very good current literature on wiki use in education.

Categories of use

A wiki is just a medium, and as any medium it does have some affordances. Also, the wiki medium is somewhat tied to "web 2.0" (e-learning 2.0) and computer-integrated classroom culture that engages learners in electronic writing. Consequently, wikis are a popular instrument for constructivists, but wikis also may be used as vehicles for more traditional designs...

Categories listed are not fully orthogonal and they can be combined of course...

Project-oriented pedagogies with wikis
  1. Wiki as a project/class management tool (see project-based learning). This includes using pages for planning and discussion, journaling of student work, etc.
  2. Wiki as a resource repository to support various flavors of project-oriented learning (e.g. documentation wikis in computer programming).
  3. Wiki to support writing-to-learn designs, e.g. inquiry-based learning.
Wiki as personal development and knowledge management tool
  1. Wiki as learning e-portfolio (although identifying individual contributions is not easy).
  2. Wiki to combine research and teaching, e.g. [courses] in OpenWetware or in the french version of this wiki
  3. Wikis to support a community of practice (e.g. a group of teachers working in the same field or students of a teacher school)
Wiki as global CMS
  1. wiki as a school or class website
  2. Wiki as university (see WikiVersity and the Wikiversity/Modified proposal.
  3. Wiki as a simple LMS (teacher posts syllabus, handouts, exercises, etc. and students submit work as wiki pages etc.)
Wiki for learning materials
  1. Wikis, organized as hypertexts, can help students think about how information is organized (see also the more ambitious cognitive flexibility theory)
  2. Wiki as initial resource for literature reviews (i.e. as a research tool). An example is use of this wiki in educational technology training.
  3. Wiki for students to create text from lectures, e.g. Vorlesungsmitschriften at ETHZ
  4. Wiki as collaborative textbook writing tool for teachers (co-editing of pages) and also as delivery tool (e.g. a revised version of the Flash articles in this wiki.
Wiki as writing tool
  1. wiki for collaborative writing in various flavors (see collaborative learning, writing-to-learn, CSCL, inquiry-based learning, ABAHCOCOSUCOL)
  2. This is related to peer-to-peer learning (peer tutoring).
  3. wiki as a collaborative content management system (includes co-construction of menus and categories)

Using Wikis to build learning communities

Chen, Gilbert and Sabol (2006) from Stanford's SCIL made a nice 15-square poster [1] that details the relationships between steps and outcome, beginning with: #1: Determine Goals -- what are learners going to do? to to #7: Connect Learners -- what are the steps to integrate face-to-face and virtual activities? to #15: Community of Practice.

Chen, H et al. (2006) Using Wikis to build learning communities, copyright SCIL 2007, reproduced with permission by Helen Chen

This picture made by Helen Chen et al. is inspired by the famous "ladder" games (getting to the top is not obvious and you may fall down ....)

Examples of educational wikis

In English
In french

Wiki software

To install on a server

Most Wiki installations require some system administration skills. Usually a Wiki runs as a web-based Internet service. If you are interested in history you may consult the Wikipedia wiki software article (and follow the links to various more specialized articles). Wikipedia also provides a [Wikipedia:Comparison of wiki software | comparison of wiki software]

The orginal and similar simple wikis

  • WikiWiki, the original written in Perl by Ward Cunningham.
  • UseModWiki is a popular wiki engine indirectly based on Cunningham's original. A popular example is MeatballWiki, a community of active practitioners striving to teach each other how to organize people using online tools. The first Wikipedia also used this engine before completly rewriting the code in PHP.

Simple wikis (with a database)

There are lots !!

  • PhpWiki, a Wiki quite close to the orginal. At TECFA we use it in secondary education. In addition, some of our PostNuke servers use a modified version as module which doesn't seem to be available anymore.
  • Wikka Wiki] (a fork of WakkaWiki) , a derived version will soon be available as pnWikka PostNuke module. (DKS - 22:07, 12 June 2006 (MEST))
  • Wikini, a french fork of WakkaWiki.

Simple file-based wikis

File-based wikis are not necessarily a worse solution (in case you don't know: data bases also write to files ....). Advantage is that files are portable easily to different computers. E.g. for a personal wiki, Doku wiki is a really good solution.

  • Doku Wiki is popular and an active project.
  • MoinMoin Wiki, a popular Python-based wiki engine.

Very simple file-based transportable wikis

  • TiddlyWiki, written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript to run on any modern browser without needing any ServerSide logic.

Wiki farms and servers

A wiki farm is a server or a collection of servers that provides wiki hosting, or a group of wikis hosted on such servers. A wiki server is software that allows to run several separate wikis through a single installation/administration.

  • Swiki is a wiki server popular in education. You can create/administer wikis for different communities, control access rights, the editing interfaces are simple enough for schools, also has file upload. This project seems to be dead, but at TECFA we run 2 Swiki servers for years without any problems. (Note: implemented with the Small talk language, usually runs on its own Comanche Web Server).
  • An alternative solution to installing your own wiki is to use a provider of a wiki farm (see below)

Complex Standalone Wikis

  • MediaWiki, e.g. this wiki.
  • TikiWiki written in PHP is more a portal than a Wiki.
  • LauLima a modified TikiWiki with many additions to allow group collaborative work. Also contains a digital library component to store student work examples for use with subsequent groups of students. Enhanced editing controls so that student work can only be edited by project teams which is important when considering marking (grading) of work. The creators of pages control who can access them. Staff have special access to student-created materials to allow reviewing/marking of student project sites. Though developed for an educational context, the permissions on the wiki make it suitable for other applications too.
  • Twiki written in Perl. Allows to define forms-based editing (structured wiki) if needed. Pages must use CamelCase names and links are automatically created for CamelCase words.
  • PmWiki, PHP and file-based, includes categories, navigation trails, group spaces (equivalent to namespaces ?)
  • Deki Wiki. Open source with optional commercial support. Also offers free hosting. This is a newer platform and that includes a touch of more recent web 2.0 technology, e.g. a web services API.
  • Atlassian Confluence, a so-called enterprise wiki that includes access control, user spaces, templating, etc.

Wiki hosting

Overview: comparison of wiki farms.

Most popular ones in education (it seems):

Others to explore:

Office 2.0 suites with a wiki (Let's you use also other tools, e.g. good word processing, presentations, databases, spreadsheets, etc. As good or better than Google).

WikiWare Indexes

You can find more wikiware on:

Links and General Bibliography

Tutorials

Talks/Slides

General

  • The Wikipedia Wiki article. On Wikipedia there are many more wiki-related articles.
  • Teaching and learning online with wikis (PDF document): introduction on wikis and how they work. Attention is focused on how to choose a wiki for e-learning activities. An icebreaker example for students is also explained.
  • Ebersbach, Anja and Markus Glaser (2004), Towards Emancipatory Use of a Medium: The Wiki, International Journal of Information Ethics, 2 (11). (PDF document)
  • Leuf, B. & Cunningham, W. (2001). The wiki way: Quick collaboration on the web. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
  • Scott, J. 2004. The great failure of Wikipedia. HTML, accessed 18:33, 20 October /2006 (MEST). (This is a funny rant about Wikipedia's "neutral point of view", btw. a policy we do not adopt in this wiki).
  • 2006 International Symposium on Wikis wikisym

About multi-purpose wikis (like this one)

Wikis in education links

  • Wiki in a K-12 classroom, CTER wiki, Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign., retrieved 15:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC).

Wikis in education bibliography

  • Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. Proceedings of the 21st Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) Conference, Perth: December 5-8, 95-104. PDF
  • Beisswenger, Michael & Angelika Storrer, Wiki-Einsatz in universitären Blended Learning-Szenarien: Konzepte und Erfahrungen aus der Dortmunder Germanistischen Linguistik, Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Technische Universität Dortmund, PDF (preprint?), retrieved 10:29, 22 September 2009 (UTC).
  • Ben-Zvi, D. (2007, October). Using Wiki to promote collaborative learning in statistics education. Technology Innovations in Statistics Education Journal, 1(1). Abstract/PDF
  • Boulos, M., Maramba, I., & Wheeler, S. (2006). Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. BMC Medical Education, 6(1). PDF
  • Bold, M. (2006). Use of wikis in graduate course work. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 17, 5-14.
  • Bruns A. & Humphreys S. (2005) Wikis in teaching and assessment: The M/Cyclopedia project. Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Wikis, San Diego, CA. PDF, retrieved 10:29, 22 September 2009 (UTC).
  • Chen, Helen L., David Cannon, Jonathan Gabrio, Larry Leifer,George Toye, and Tori Bailey (2005). Using Wikis and Weblogs to Support Reflective Learning in an Introductory Engineering Design Course, Proceeding of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, PDF
  • Chen, Helen; Dan Gilbert and Jeremy Sabol (2006). L. Using Wikis to build learning communities, Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning, Webpage, [2], retrieved oct 25 2007.
  • Chien-Min Wang, Wiki-Style Administration of Online Course Content. A Project Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Computer Science, California State University, San Bernardino, Department of Computer Science, October 2003.
  • Chien-min Wang and David Turner, "Extending the Wiki Paradigm for Use in the Classroom," in ITCC 2004 : International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing : April 5-7, 2004, Las Vegas, Nevada : Proceedings, edited by Pradip K. Srimani, 255-261. Los Alamitos, CA.: IEEE Computer Society, 2004.
  • Choy, S. O. & Ng, K. C. (2007). Implementing wiki software for supplementing online learning, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(2), 209-226. HTML
  • Collaborative Software Lab (2000), A Catalog of CoWeb Uses, College of Computing, Georgia tech [ ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gvu/tr/2000/00-19.pdfPDF] (By the creators of the Swiki system, still probably the best catalog of what you can do with a wiki in education).
  • Désilets, A. and S. Paquet (2005), Wiki as a Tool for Web-based Collaborative Story Telling in Primary School: A Case Study, EdMedia 2005, World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications. Montréal, Québec, Canada. PDF
  • Doebeli Honegger, Beat (2005). Wikis: a rapidly growing phenomenon in the German-speaking school community, Proceedings of the 2005 international symposium on Wikis. PDF
  • Doe-Hyung, Kim (2004). Critical Review: Collaborative Learning with a Wiki (PDF document) (presentation of a wiki and discussion around the adoption of a wiki in language learning.)
  • Duquenoy, Eric. Intégration d'un wiki dans la méthode d'apprentissage par le problème. pdf
  • Ebner, M., Kickmeier-Rust, M. & Holzinger, A. (2008). Utilizing wiki-systems in higher education classes: A chance for universal access? Universal Access in the Information Society, 7(4), 199-207.
  • ElRufaie, Elharith, A Wiki Paradigm to Manage Online Course Content. Masters Thesis, California State University, San Bernardino, Department of Computer Science, Technical Report, 2004. PDF
  • Elrufaie, Elharith and David Turner, "A Wiki Paradigm for Use in IT Courses," Conference paper prepared for ITCC 2005: International Conference on Information Technology 2005, April 4-6, 2005, Las Vegas, Nevada.
  • Ferris, S. P. and H. Wilder. 2006. Uses and potentials of wikis in the classroom. Innovate 2 (5). HTML
  • Fountain, Renée, Wiki Pedagogy, Profetique, Dossiers pratiques, HTML. (This is a good technical and pedagogical introduction).
  • Gong, Chaohua and Yueliang Zhou, "The Piloting Researches on Collaborative Lesson-Preparing Based on Eduwiki Platform," csse, vol. 5, pp.113-116, 2008 International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, 2008, http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/CSSE.2008.460
  • Guzdial, M. Rick, J. and Kehoe, C.: Beyond Adoption to Invention: Teacher-Created Collaborative Activities in Higher Education, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2001, Vol. 10, No. 3, 265--279
  • Guzdial, Mark; Jochen Rick , Bolot Kerimbaev, Recognizing and supporting roles in CSCW, Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.261-268, December 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States PDF (ACM restricted)
  • Guzdial, Mark et al. (2000). A Catalog of CoWeb Uses, Collaborative Software Lab, College of Computing, Georgia Tech. PDF
  • Hewitt, J., Peters, V., & Brett, C. (2006). Using Wiki Technologies as an Adjunct to Computer Conferencing in a Graduate Teacher Education Course. In Crawford, C., Willis, D., Carlsen, R., Gibson, I., McFerrin, K., Price, J., & Weber, R. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2006 (pp. 2240-2243). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. HTML Abstract / PDF
  • Horman, Judith (2005). Une exploration de l'interaction sociale en ligne lors de la réalisation d'activités d'apprentissage collaboratif dans deux espaces interactifs: un site internet et des wikis, Master (?) Thesis, Université de Laval. Abstract/HTML/PDF - HTML
  • Klobas, Jane, (2006). Wikis: Tools for Information Work and Collaboration, Chandos Publishing, ISBN 1843341794
  • Konieczny, Piotr (2007), Wikis and Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Vol. 4. No. 1. HTML
  • James, H. 2004. My brilliant failure: Wikis in classrooms. Kairos News, HTML
  • Lamb, Brian (2004). Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not, EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 36-48. PDF
  • Lombard, F. (2007). Empowering next generation learners : Wiki supported Inquiry Based Learning ? Paper presented at the European practise based and practitioner conference on learning and instruction Maastricht 14-16 November 2007 PDF reprint/PPT
  • McKay, S., & McKay, S. (2005). Wiki as CMS. In Crawford, C., Willis, D., Carlsen, R., Gibson, I., McFerrin, K., Price, J., & Weber, R. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2005 (pp. 2300-2301). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. HTML Abstract / PDF
  • Miettinen, Miikka, Jaakko Kurhila and Henry Tirri, On the Prospects of Intelligent Collaborative E-learning Systems, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. IOS Press, 483-490. PDF
  • M. Miettinen, J. Kurhila, P. Nokelainen, H. Tirri, OurWeb - Transparent Groupware for Online Communities. Pp. 53-61 in the Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on Web-Based Communities 2005 (Algarve, Portugal, February 2005). PDF
  • Neumann, David, L. and Michelle Hood (2009). The effects of using a wiki on student engagement and learning of report writing skills in a university statistics course, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25 (3), 382-398.
  • Notari, Michele (2006). How to use a Wiki in education: 'Wiki based effective constructive learning', Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wiki, PDF (Michele has an MA in edutech from TECFA ...)
  • Pappenberger, F., Harvey, H., Beven, K., Hall, J. & Meadowcroft, I. (2006). Decision tree for choosing an uncertainty analysis methodology: A wiki experiment. Hydrology Processes, 20, 3793-3798.
  • Parker, Kevin R. and Joseph T. Chao (2007). Wiki as a Teaching Tool, Interdisciplinary Journal of E-learning and Learning Objects, vol. 3, PDF.
  • Pérez-García, Margarita (2006). WikiEducation: pas de co-construction sans éducation aux médias, eduCarnaval (8), HTML.
  • Raman, M., Ryan, T. & Olfman, L. (2005). Designing knowledge management systems for teaching and learning with wiki technology. Journal of Information Systems Education, 16, 311-320.
  • Ravid, G., Kalman, Y. & Rafaeli, S. (2008). Wikibooks in higher education: Empowerment through online distributed collaboration. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1913-1928.
  • Robertson, I. (2008). Learners' attitudes to wiki technology in problem based, blended learning for vocational teacher education. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24(4), 425-441. HTML
  • Ruth, A. & Houghton, L. (2009). The wiki way of learning. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(2), 135-152. HTML
  • Tétard, Franck; Kristian Packalén, Erkki Patokorpi (2008 ?). Learning with wikis – three case studies of the use of wikis in university education, Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research, Åbo Akademi University - Finland PDF.
  • Trentin, G. (2009). Using a wiki to evaluate individual contribution to a collaborative learning project, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25 (1), 43-55, 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00276.x.
  • Wang, Hao,Chuan, Chun-Hung Lu, Jun-Yi Yang, Hsin-Wen Hu, Guey-Fa Chiou, Yuch-Tzu Chiang and Wen-Lian Hsu (2005), An empirical exploration of using Wiki in an English as a second language course, Advanced Learning Technologies, (ICALT 2005), 155-157 ISBN 0-7695-2338-2, Abstract and restricted PDF accesspdf
  • Wheeler, S., Yoemans, P. & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluating student generated content for collaborative learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39, 987-995.
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