Wiki workshop

Using Wikis in organizations

Wikis are just one way of editing content on the Web. With their special markup, they require initial learning from the user. But they provide a less constrained and "quick" way to access and create information. This workshop provides an overview of Wikis, and tries to explain where content in general is heading with the semantic web.

Where do they come from?

• Hypertext 1950s - 70s - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart (Computer mouse, Hypertext, Groupware, Interactive Computing)
• Hypertext 1990s - the web

• Culture - view source - http://www.whitehouse.gov/ (well designed) links to other media
• Transparency, open source & reusable data (web browsers & servers)
• Mass involvement
• Computer culture, Facebook &c - http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=37403547074&ref=nf

• Wikis predate wikipedia - c2, hgttg, everything

Visualizations

• Vandalfighter / Beren
• Touchgraph

• http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/visualizing_akamai.html
• http://labs.digg.com/stack/
• http://labs.digg.com/swarm/

Problems solved

• Reference
• Collaborative definitions
• Personal or workgroup notes/database
• Knowledge management (using categories)
• Share organized info without blasting everyone
• Bliki (blog in a wiki)

Stefan comments (a technical person):

• a wiki is like play-doh or paper and you can make anything out of it. With a few formatting conventions i've seen wikis used for documentation, task and TODO lists, planning and timelines, bug tracking, tracking physical resources (where is this piece of equipment and has it been paid for yet) and customer relations

• it's faster and easier and safer than emailing around a bunch of word documents with "track changes" turned on

Helen comments (a creative person):

• What makes me a Wiki enthusiast after tonight, however, is that I've now seen how wikis enable the management & generation of knowledge, and the planning & generation of work. Specifically, I think it's incredible that with wikis (or at least this particular wiki software), you are expected to generate the title (reference) for a link BEFORE you generate the content for the link. So if I'm tackling a multidimensional beast, even just a complicated grant, I can start with the main text, and put in links to appendix documents without having those documents in existence yet. In other words, it's a conceptual approach -- I LIKE!!

DavidM comments:

• I like wikis because of their flexibility. Once they learn a few tricks, "users" can easily create pages and organized content, and with semantic wikis, "users" can be programmers, creating their own data types, forms and views. There is also a culture of openness, enablement and expecting more.

Compared to other applications

• More generalizable, less rigid
• Not really for communications (but see Blikis)
• With semantic wikis, they will become more like applications

How do they work

• Rows and columns, relational databases – hypertext and wikis
• Easy editing, on the spot
  • Simple syntax, typically no rich text editor
• Typically write-able by anyone
• Full history is always there, can revert
• Use discussion tab for comments and questions

Creating a page

• From main – a few links per page
• Keep each major topic on its own page, or move to one when its time
• When editing other's work, be considerate of what they were trying to say

Hands on

• Create an account
• Create your user page with a heading and a link
• Fill in the link

Issues

• Not everyone has access to a computer / is comfortable using a wiki
  • Summaries
  • Don't rely on them exclusively
  • Different workflows for different people -storyteller, coder
• Making information available
  • NPOV, substantiated
  • Culture is changing to be more critical, expect more
• Different wikis are better at different tasks
• Managing expectations

Types of Wikis

• Personal wiki (tiddly, bliki)
• Workgroup/intranet/project – third party and self hosted - http://www.semanticweb.com/article.php/3787986
• Public, unique topic focused
• Public, general topic
• Wikipedia

Sample wikis

• http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/wisdom-feds-internal-wikifying-obamas-open-government-directive use in government

• http://www.wikileaks.org - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#Notable_leaks
• http://www.wikipedia.org - languages
• http://policywiki.theglobeandmail.com/tiki-index.php?page=Child+Nutrition+Briefing+Note

Semantic wikis

• computers are stupid – parsing
• inference - http://smwxbig.zooid.org/wiki/Community, associate terrorism with whitehouse.gov!? , * Ontologies - formal categories and attributes

http://smwxbig.zooid.org/wiki/Community

• Properties – ad hoc and non
• Categories & querying

• Templates & Forms
• Facets
• http://semanticweb.org/wiki/User:Markus_Kr%C3%B6tzsch/Map_example
• http://semanticweb.org/wiki/User:Markus_Kr%C3%B6tzsch/Browse_tools
• Extensions
• Different meanings for a word – hing:book, person:author - individual, person, personne
• Relating data sources - http://www.wandora.org/wandora/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page http://www.wandora.org/wandora/wiki/images/Wandoras_extractors.gif

Hands on

• Put yourself in the Person category
• Add your birth date
• Add your postal code
• Add your favourite colour
• People

Problems solved

• Databases with finely and arbitrarily defined data, with forms and querying

Applications for CED

• Neighborhood knowledge - http://www.placeography.org/index.php/Bridge_Trail_Walking_Tour - add arbitrary knowedge
• Workgroup practices
• Codifying knowledge, getting people up to speed
• Analysis, references
• Link to other groups

Other applications?

mel knows how to edit, thanks david [[1]]