A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk What Can Wikis Offer? Brian Kelly, UKOLN, University of Bath Bath UKOLN is supported by: About This Session This session will provide an introduction to Wikis, showing how Wikipedia can be used to promote your college and, having learnt about Wiki concepts, how Wikis can be used in e-learning About This Session This session will provide an introduction to Wikis, showing how Wikipedia can be used to promote your college and, having learnt about Wiki concepts, how Wikis can be used in e-learning This work is licensed under a Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) Resources bookmarked using ‘ aoc-nilta-2007 ' tag

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 Contents Introduction What Is A Wiki? Exploring Wikipedia Wikis and Learning Deployment Issues:  Technical  Non-technical Discussion Conclusions

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 About Me Brian Kelly: UK Web Focus: a national Web advisory post Based at UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management Located at the University of Bath Funded by JISC and MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) Involved in Web since Jan 1993 Currently advising on best practices for Web 2.0 Introduction

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 About You How many of you have heard about Wikis? How many of you have used a Wiki? How many of you have a Wiki service in your college? What do you hope to gain from this session? Introduction

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 What Is A Wiki? Wiki: A website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content, typically without the need for registration (from Wikipedia ) A collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. (from Wiktionary ) See also “An Introduction to Wikis”, QA Focus briefing document no. 78 About Wikis

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 Let’s Look At A Wiki Wikipedia is the largest and best known example of a Wiki An entry exists in Wikipedia for AoC NILTA Why: Users know about Wikipedia and use it to find stuff Users browsing FE colleges and related terms will find links to AoC NILTA Helps Google ranking Easy to create Wikipedia

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 Editing A Page Click on the Edit This Page tab to display edit window To create/amend: Enter text (blank line for new paragraphs) [[link]] create a link to another entry in Wikipedia called foo [ foo] creates an external link Other simple commands That’s it!! Wikipedia

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 History Of The Entry Notice that the history of various versions of the entry are available If a page is vandalised, a previous version can be retrieved If page authors have logged in, you can identify the user name (and user if details added) Wikipedia

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 What Else Is Available? Section on Further Education gives: Overview Lists of FE colleges in UK Some issues: Are you included? (some entries in directory lead to non- existent pages) What does the entry say about you? Wikipedia

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 Quality, Style, etc. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopaedia Conventions: No advertising Entries should be about significant content Quality content Entries by self-interested parties may not be neutral Issues: Get feel for conventions first Peer-reviewing? Prepare for negative feedback from Wikipedia ‘angels’ Wikipedia

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 Wikipedia and Copyright Do you own the copyright of the materials you upload to Wikipedia? If not, plagiarism detection may raise queries? Wikipedia Mike_Walker_%28jazz_guitarist%29 Mike_Walker_%28jazz_guitarist%29 title=Rapper_sword&direction=prev &oldid= title=Rapper_sword&direction=prev &oldid= Have you assigned Creative Commons rights to materials you have upload to Wikipedia? If not, as this can be a barrier to reuse of materials by others, the materials may be removed

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12 Wikis and Learning Why Wikis? Advertising your college Low-cost and high visibility Gaining experiences Just do it! Wikis and e-learning: Collaborative working Student-centred working Social learning Student as a citizen … Using Wikis How? Wikipedia … How? In-house solution Integrated solution Hosted Wiki …

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 Wiki As A Key Technology JotSpot used during e-learning event: Organisers jointly develop timetable and resources on Wiki Using Wikis Participants pre-event homework Group exercises (notes not trapped on flipchart!) Note there may be gender issues in seizing control of the technologies! Net%20Generation%20Overview Net%20Generation%20Overview This 1-day event made use of JotSpot – a Wiki service which is now owned by Google

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14 Glossary-Pedia University of Arizona’s Learning Technology Center: Installed MediaWiki in 2004 Supported online IT course for 35 students Put definitions of IT terms from 2003 course on Wiki Asked students to update definitions Wikis & Learning Discussion: Building on group memory Working collaboratively Sharing experiences (Wiki pages written on ‘how to use the Wiki) Technology used in context Discussion: Building on group memory Working collaboratively Sharing experiences (Wiki pages written on ‘how to use the Wiki) Technology used in context See < The+LTC+Wiki+-+Experiences+with+Integrating+a+Wiki+in+Instruction> See < The+LTC+Wiki+-+Experiences+with+Integrating+a+Wiki+in+Instruction>

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 Chemistry Example (1) Henry Rzepa’s talk on Wikis: Uses a Wiki as a presentational device Can be built on my colleagues The resource: Explains relationships with CMSs, VLEs, … Provides examples of use of Wikis in chemistry teaching Wikis & Learning

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 16 Chemistry Example (2) Wikis are not just for text and images, as can be seen in these examples. Wikis & Learning

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 17 Wikis & Six Thinking Hats How I’ve used Wikis: Get participants to describe their interests & expectations (add to Wiki) Use 6 Thinking Hats exercise and get groups to use Wiki for their notes Use Wiki recent changes (& RSS output) to view overall outputs Wikis & Learning

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 18 Student-Led Use Of Wikis Wikis can be used by students to support their social & other interests: Pubs, clubs, etc Choosing courses … Such Wikis may be provided by: Commercial sector (e.g. TSR?) Institutions themselves wiki/TSR_Wiki wiki/TSR_Wiki Wikis & Learning

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 19 Wiki Technologies If you want to make use of a Wiki, what software should you use? Install dedicated Wiki software (Media Wiki, Confluence, … Use bundled Wiki software (Moodle, Blackboard, …) Use third party hosted service (WebPaint, Jot, …) installed Note: Pros and cons of different approaches discussed at “Exploiting The Potential Of Wikis” workshop Summary of discussions available at Discussion: Wiki Technologies

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 20 Wikis: A Discussion (1) The question is not “Why Wiki?” but “Why now?”: Wikis build on established “computer supported collaborative work” tradition Tipping point: Social nature of learning :  Social constructivism  Dialogue and negotiated meaning, …  Collaboration, community and creativity Socio-technical & culture changes:  Ubiquitous computing  Digital natives, Web generation, …  Web 2.0 Discussion: Non-technical Based on “Wikis and Collaboration: Approaches to Deploying Wikis in Educational Settings” by Steve Warburton

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 21 Wikis: A Discussion (2) Concerns: Fear of losing control by levelling structures of authority Lack of approved mechanisms for administering (group) assessment and rating individual performance Discussion : Non-technical Are these the key concerns for you? If so, how do you think they should be addressed? Are these the key concerns for you? If so, how do you think they should be addressed?

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 22 Let’s Try It! AoC Nilta conference: Talks, sessions, etc Evaluation forms Why not explore use of a Wiki: A light-weight way of exposing delegates to Wikis Delegates can see what others are saying Rapid responses (no need to wait for data input from paper forms) page/Home/thread page/Home/thread Discussion : Deployment

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 23 Conclusions To conclude: Some uses of Wikis are simple and can provide clear benefits to colleges (i.e. Wikipedia) Wikis can make it easier for students to create Web content, avoiding complexities of CMSs There are issues to be addressed Possible deployment strategies: Use of social contexts Use of staff (e.g. feedback on this conference) Trusting your students

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 24 Questions Any questions?