Wiki Culture & Collaboration Presented by: Faria Sami Quratulain Shattari Munim Ahmed Zaid Nizami

WIKI  A Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser.  The term "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian phrase, "wiki wiki," which means "super fast”.  Thousands of users adding content to a Web site on a regular basis, the site could grow "super fast”.

 3 components of a wiki: 1.Editing wiki pages 2.Navigation 3.Linking and creating pages

Video  Wikis in Plain English

How WIKI works??

Social Computing and WIKI

Collaboration Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals that is creative in nature by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.

Characteristics of wikis  Anarchistic: No user has more rights then any other user.  Collaborative: Its strength is in its ability to facilitate users to cooperate without a division of labor has been made in advance. It supports communication between users in relation to a certain topic.

 Connected: Wiki pages are interlinked in a network structure.  Organic: A wiki expands itself in an organic way because of the lack of control and delegated division of labor

 Self-healing: Wikis with a large community, have a high potential of self-healing  Based on trust: Wiki communities lean heavily on the trust between its users.

Wiki culture  Culture is a word for people's "way of life", meaning the way they do things.  A group of people has a separate culture when that group sets itself apart from others through its actions.  So People who use wiki are part of the WIKI Culture.

Steps to establish a WIKI culture 1.Vision 2.Scope 3.Guidelines 4.Rules

Steps to establish a WIKI culture 1. Vision: Broad statements about the overall idea behind the wiki  All members of the organization are free to contribute to the wiki  Unless specifically restricted, all information in the wiki shall be open for everyone in the organization to read, edit or delete.  Communication within the wiki shall be done with honesty, respect and courteousness

2. Scope: D efine boundaries of wiki usage  The wiki shall be used for all communication between staff unless a specific application exists that is mandated for use.

3. Guidelines : practical steps helping people to use wiki. –Use good wiki style –Use Wiki editing tips –Use Wiki etiquette

4. Rules : rules are necessary for any culture care must be taken not to restrict the culture by overstating rules.  All normal rules governing electronic communications also apply on the wiki

Video  World of WIKIS

Techniques to Introduce a wiki  Management –Manage the adoption of the wiki as a project –Training program –Good support network needs to be left in place  Social connections –Best way to communicate this to new users is to start some social pages

 Content –Good quality content is the primary attraction to a wiki –Making some content only available on the wiki will make users use the wiki at least for that content  Encouragement  Incentives –SAP use a points system –Wiki points system –Statistics can also be used for measuring user input for incentives

WIKI Communities  User Communities: Many wiki communities are private, particularly within enterprises. They are often used as internal documentation for in-house systems and applications.  Research Communities: Wikis are an active topic of research. Two well-known wiki conferences are –The International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym), a conference dedicated to wiki research and practice in general –Wikimania, a conference dedicated to research and practice of Wikimedia Foundation projects like Wikipedia.

Changing behaviors to adopt WIKI  If you have something to write, write it in the wiki  If you need to send an , send a link to a wiki page.  Check the recent changes daily  Advance behaviors : Refactoring Indexing Search first Take in the context

Advantages of WIKI  Anyone can edit  Easy to use and learn  Wikis are instantaneous  People located in different parts of the world can work on the same document  Wiki software keeps track of every edit made and it's a simple process to revert back to a previous version of an article  There are a wide range of open source software wiki's to choose from so licensing costs shouldn't be a barrier to installing an institutional wiki

Disadvantages of WIKI  Anyone can edit so this may be too open for some applications, for example confidential documentation. However it is possible to regulate user access.  Open to SPAM if not managed properly.  Requires Internet connectivity to collaborate  The flexibility of a wiki's structure can mean that information becomes disorganized. As a wiki grows, the community plans and administers the structure collaboratively.  The usual guidelines for healthy computer use apply