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ABOUT THIS WIKI

This wiki was first created in late 2005 to teach about the use of wikis - particularly the use of open source wiki software. It is what some call a metawiki. The home page of the wiki that you are now viewing is "protected" from editing by viewers - the other pages are open to editing by anyone.

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Who's behind this wiki?

Tim Kellers, IT Liaison, Continuing Professional Education, NJIT, and Ken Ronkowitz, Adjunct Instructor, MSPTC, Department of Humanities, NJIT and Director of Writing, Passaic County Community College

What is a wiki?

Wikis might be considered part of the Web 2.0 movement. They are surely not as well known (or "sexy") as podcasting, blogging, photo and video sharing. For a company or school, that may be a real plus. We don't see kids jumping on the wiki bandwagon and creating them as they do with blogs and websites like MySpace. Wikis still have a more "serious" tone.

  • the first wiki was created in 1995 by Oregon programmer Ward Cunningham
  • named for the "Wiki-Wiki," or "quick" shuttle buses at the Honolulu Airport
  • They are web sites on which anyone can post material without knowing programming languages or HTML.
  • The most famous wiki is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiPedia (We are using the same software - Mediawiki - that is used on Wikipedia for this site)
  • Many people refer to wikis as "collaborative web sites."

Is a wiki the same thing as a "blog"?

No, they are quite different, though there are some similarities.

  • Both allow the posting of topics.
  • Users can create web pages and post them without knowledge of HTML or FTP.
  • They can be public or have private elements (like moderated comments).
  • Both allow "skins" which can change the style of a site with just a few mouse clicks.

There are also significant differences.

  • Blogs generally allow comments from anyone who views an entry, but you can't edit the original posting. Blogs can be compared to the threaded discussion tools found online and in some course management systems, such as WebCT and Blackboard.
  • Blogs generally accept HTML code to be inserted which makes editing more flexible and allows designs to be fancier. In wikis, content is the primary concern, not design. 
   Take a look at the our open source blog that focuses on educational technology Serendipity35.

You can subscribe to that blog using Bloglines or any RSS aggregator. Our RSS feed is: http://devel2.njit.edu/serendipity/index.php?/feeds/index.rss2

What are the benefits of wikis?

The most obvious benefits of a wiki are textual collaboration, the creation of a dynamic content-rich website, and the ability to enhance productivity.

more about benefits

How are schools and corporations using wikis?

Wikis, blogs, podcasting, RSS feeds, chat and groupware (like Microsoft SharePoint) are all gaining momentum in organizations. Still, many observers think it's the easy-to-use and practically-free wikis that offer the most promise of collaboration beyond that "killer app, e-mail.

[Click here for information about how wikis are being used by corporations]

[Click here for information about how wikis are being used by schools]

How do you maximize collaboration?

Here's your chance to collaborate...

Techniques that encourage collaboration in the non-wiki world often also apply to wikis.

What practices in your organization currently encourage collaboration?


more on collaboration

Why go public with your wiki?

"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." ~ John Shedd

If you embrace the philosophy of wikis (and open source) then you believe in opening up your knowledge to the (online) world. And it probably is gaining momentum in the same frightening way that cut 'n' paste and legal/illegal file sharing has become the norm for the Net Generation.

Why go public?

  • It allows you to collaborate with the world.
  • It gives you a wider audience.


Why you might NOT want to go public with your wiki?

  • you are using your wiki as an intranet for private communications and collaboration
  • it contains intellectual property or there are copyright issues with content
  • you don't want collaboration from outsiders (or vandalism)
  • you have a closed group of contributors ( a class, department, club etc.)
  • spammers!

There is security available for wikis

What security options exist for wikis?

If large corporations and universities atre using wikis for research etc., why can't you find more wikis online?

Some wiki user/creators do not want their content to be viewable and/or open to the public. There are several security options available to use with your wiki, click [here] for more on security.

What wiki software is available?

Mediawiki is a free software package originally written for Wikipedia but it now runs other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and many other wikis, including this wiki.


TWiki is another popular wiki product that is perl based. Take a look at a sample TWiki installation at NJIT


NJIT also has a sample PBwiki installation for demo purposes. We are using the free version of the software, however there is a premium upgrade with more features. PBwiki allows you to have a login & password to make your wiki "private" which is what we have done with this demo.

http://pbwiki.com/sandwch2.jpg

Wikispaces is a good site with free & paid versions and the emphasis is on educational wikis. You can take a tour of Wikispaces.

Click here for an extensive list of information on other wiki software and links to download software

What are the system requirements for serving a wiki?

To deploy and support a wiki, an internet or intranet is required, a computer that can be the hardware host for the server software, appropriate operating system software, and web server software that supports whatever programming language in which the wiki software is written.

Wikis will run on almost any hardware/operating system combination that will support the Apache web server, either a MySQL or PostgreSQL database server, and the PHP programming/scripting language.

More about a typical installation

How is a wiki installed?

Right this way --Installing a wiki


Want to take a look at what Mediawiki looks like without doing any significant changes after installation? Here is a another instance of ours...

How do you create content (pages) and format them?

Though wikis do not use HTML to create pages, it would be useful to know a little bit about formatting a page to work in a wiki. We will be adding a page about style for wiki pages soon (unless someone else does it first!)


TO CREATE TABLES on a page The easiest way to learn how to make tables is to go to this pageand click EDIT to look at the code that creates the tables there.

Can I export content?

MediaWiki export functions

Can I add podcasts and RSS feeds to my wiki?

Podcasts and RSS feeds are initiated by links, so they can be easily incorporated into a wiki.

I'll link here to a very short podcast for a course at NJIT in the graduate program in public health. Clicking this link will open the audio file http://podcast.njit.edu/mph644/beaton/mp3/preface.mp3

RSS feeds for this wiki include

If you use some RSS aggregator like Bloglines to subscribe to websites, blogs, wikis etc., then you can add one of those URLs and when you log in to your aggregator, it will let you know if there have been updates to this wiki.

Mediawiki EXTRAS

The Mediawiki software offers Special pages. Here are some samples (you can access the special pages from the link in the left column of this wiki's home page)

  • Book sources - search by ISBN 020171499X
  • Categories
  • List of blocked IP addresses and usernames
  • Logs
  • Long pages
  • Most linked to pages
  • Popular pages
  • Preferences - skins
  • Random page
  • Recent changes
  • Wanted pages

Join our wiki DISCUSSION

JOIN OUR DISCUSSION ON WIKIS Add your own topics and questions and add information to this wiki!


Sample Wikis

Wikipedia - the mother of all wikis (or so it seems) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Wikia is a collection of communal Web sites founded by the creator of Wikipedia. They have unveiled a service that lets colleges set up their own wikis. The wikis can be read by any Web surfer, but they can only be edited by college students and faculty and staff members. Samples Pennsylvania State University http://students.wikia.com/wiki/Penn_State Boston College http://students.wikia.com/wiki/Boston_College

NJIT's Smart Campus Wiki - this is an interesting mashup of a wiki with mobile social software https://wiki.njit.edu/

The Coral Reef Sensor Networks Community http://ihpc.jcu.edu.au:8080/Reef%20Grid-Sensor%20Networks/FrontPage

WikiPractices is an initiative to identify and describe best (and worst) social practices in the Wiki community. Social practices are those approaches to Wiki stewardship and usership that can't be easily codified as technical (software) solutions, but do have proven, more solutions. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiPractices

Alacra Wiki is a guide to business information companies, publishers and databases. Anyone can contribute, but you must create an account in order to do so. Marketing materials, product reviews, product announcements and executive bios are all welcome. http://www.alacrawiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page


An offshoot of the wiki movement is Wikibooks at http://wikibooks.org/ - a Wikimedia project that started in 2003 with the mission to create a free collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit.

PRESENTATIONS about Using Wikis

Click here for information on presentations Tim and I have done about using open source wikis

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