2005 Article Notes

From WolfWikis

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7 Things You Should Know About Wikis

(2005)

• "Wikis permit asynchronous communication and group collaboration across the Internet. Variously described as a composition system, a discussion medium, a repository, a mail system, and a tool for collaboration, wikis provide users with both author and editor privileges; the overall organization of contributions can be edited as well as the content itself."
• "Educators and students, as well as amateurs and professionals (artists, writers, collectors), have found wikis useful in expanding community involvement and interest in their subjects and activities."
• "Wikis offer a powerful yet flexible collaborative communication tool for developing content-specific Web sites. Because wikis grow and evolve as a direct result of people adding material to the site, they can address a variety of pedagogical needs—student involvement, group activities, and so on. Since wikis reside on the Internet, students can access and participate from any location, provided they have Internet access."
• "Wikis show great potential as collaborative spaces that may become semi-authoritative voices on particular topics."
• "The possibilities for using wikis as the platform for collaborative projects are limited only by one’s imagination and time."
• Wikis might be the easiest and most effective Web-based collaboration tool in any instructional portfolio. Their inherent simplicity provides students with direct (and immediate) access to a site’s content, which is crucial in group editing or other collaborative project activities. A wiki’s versioning capability can show the evolution of thought processes as students interact with the site and its contents."

Are Wikis Usable?

by Alain Désilets, et al. (2005)

Collaborative Authoring on the Web: A Genre Analysis of Online Encyclopedias

by William Emigh and Susan C. Herring (2005)

• "Two basic criteria make a site a wiki: authorship and version control." (2)

• "In order to alleviate the potential problem of “bad” authors, each node has a log of all changes made to it and who made those changes. This makes it easy to revert a node if the content has been deleted or changed." (2)

• "The system of trust embedded in a wiki is thus primarily social." (2)

English Studies in Levittown: Rhetorics of Space and Technology in Course-Management Software

by Darin Payne (2005)

• "Regardless of whether they are studying via distance education, commuting to campus, or living and learning in residence, most students these days must spend a significant amount of time in institutional virtual environments: visual and textual spaces that are increasingly the sites of curricular content and course activities, as well as college-wide communications and interactions— general and specific forms of disembodied college life." (484)
• "English studies is thus, for many, a project in demystifying the literate practices that shape our ways of seeing (of knowing, of being) both the self and the other. And for a great number of scholarteachers who share that goal, English studies is also a critical pedagogical project designed to expose and challenge the identities produced by an arbitrary, ideological system of hegemonic cultural productions." (484)
• "I wish to focus on space because it is, like rhetoric, epistemic in nature and architectonic in its scope and influence on everyday life. Space creates frameworks for conception, action, and interaction; its design—whether natural or artificial—limits and directs what we think and do, as well as with whom we do it. Space is not a neutral conduit within which social productions occur; it is itself socially produced, and as such it is shot through with the very ideologies of identity and power with which much of our disciplinary work contends." (485)
• "Space is rhetorical—in both classical and contemporary uses of the term. If we apply definitions of classical rhetoric to space, we can readily see the ways in which space is persuasive: how it is most effective when suited to particular occasions and audiences who will understand and accept its logic, its emotional appeal, even its character." (485-86)
• ". . . while space makes possible a range of actions within it, it also validates those actions and normalizes them, concealing in the process their arbitrary social origins." (486)
• "The way we are in space—how we act, what we say, the way we say it, and to whom—contributes to who we are in space. That contribution in turn helps to establish the ownership of space and its normative productions of social identities and relations." (486)
• "It is to suggest, however, that their discursive behavior—including that which is political—is policed, at least in part, by the space. As a result, so are their politics and, especially, their understandings of what political actions are appropriate and who commonly engages in them. Designed out of this space, then, is the messiness of one social group being subjected to class-based others and to their differing political concerns and means of political action." (486-87)
• "In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre writes, “Is it conceivable that the exercise of hegemony might leave space untouched? Could space be nothing more than the passive locus of social relations, the milieu in which their combination takes on body, or the aggregate of the procedures employed in their490) removal? The answer must be no” (11). Lefebvre goes on to formulate a trialectic theory of spatial rhetoric comprising space as it is perceived, conceived, and lived. This triad, Lefebvre argues, can help us understand space as a material and symbolic system of order and knowledge, a process and product of signification that both serves and initiates thought and action; it is with that understanding that we might see space as more than a means of production and also as “a means of control, and hence of domination, of power” (26)." (487)
• "Spatialized ideology succeeds, according to Lefebvre, through a double illusion: the illusion of transparency and the seemingly contradictory but ultimately complementary realistic illusion. The former refers to an understanding of space as purely within the realm of the abstract, the mental. The latter refers to perceptions of space as only materially concrete, existing apart from the subject." (487)
• "Lefebvre’s introduction of a third perspective: specifically that of space as lived. As such, space is recognized as inherently ideological because it has been produced by socialized beings in particular contexts, and it (along with its ideology) is open to static reproduction or negotiation and transformation because it is used, however passively or actively, by contextualized social beings. It is in fact this conception of space by Lefebvre that is the source for Soja’s appropriately termed notion of thirdspace, built upon by Mauk and by others in the humanities. . . " (488)
• "De Certeau calls this interplay between inhabitant and space an interplay of strategies (those inherent in the space’s design) and tactics (those performed by the inhabitant in response to the design). Notably, de Certeau also refers to this interplay as dialogue, as rhetoric." (488)
• ". . . the hegemony inherent in the production of space functions by degree; whether one sees totalitarianism or dialogism at work depends upon the margins of maneuver (or lack thereof) built, found, or made in the space—a relationship between agency and structure that will vary according to design and use as well as time and circumstance." (489)
• "I find Lefebvre’s explicit attention to all three forms of space particularly useful to explorations of virtual environments, which can be too easily reduced to the realm of the abstract." (490)
• "A virtual space such as Blackboard is at once metaphorical and material, a digitized representation brought to life through electronic access and costly computer hardware. Any lived experiences within Blackboard are inevitably situated within material economic conditions that include and exclude participants according to their positions within an economic order. At the same time, lived experiences in Blackboard are also situated within an abstract socio-ideological system that includes and excludes participants according to their positions relative to the culture that Blackboard embodies. The concrete and abstract spaces of Blackboard determine, to a large degree, just how it is to be a lived space.

Beginning with the concrete (if readers will forgive the pun): access to Blackboard is not unlike the access to Long Island parks designed by Robert Moses. While not restricted to automobile-owning whites, access to Blackboard is nonetheless restricted to PC- or Mac-owning Internet subscribers, whose hardware and operating systems can handle relatively recent Web browsers." (490)

• "Thus from the standpoint of mere physicality, virtual educational environments like Blackboard are hardly apolitical spaces; they are instead spaces produced in part by material conditions that determine who gets to participate and, in turn, whose identities get inscribed and reproduced there." (491)
• ". . . imagined space—the metaphorical locations that represent, explain, or otherwise “link” to physical places and help to construct space as lived." (491)
• "The tendencies toward homogeneity built into Blackboard’s space are an unmistakable result of its being designed for mass production and consumption in a market economy." (495)
• "As a consequence, Blackboard serves the interests of the dominant culture by naturalizing and commodifying its space/rhetoric." (495)
• "The homogeneity of Blackboard thus serves several ends: one, it denies or masks the differentiated material spaces of its users, spaces that are themselves political and productive of particular identities; two, it denies social and cultural differences in the identities of its users by reducing their opportunities for legitimate self-expression; and three, it produces in its users an identity informed by the discursive/spatial practices of the ruling class, reproduced simply as the default mode of being." (495)
• "Blackboard reproduces specific social relations, too, as defaults: while students are constructed in ways that imply particular relational constraints (we who are all the same belong in this space), teachers are additionally granted identities laden with institutional and epistemological authority through spatial design." (495)
• ". . . digital communications technology lends itself to applications of panopticism . . ." (495)
• "Possibilities for students to resist prescribed behaviors are thus reduced significantly, leaving them little choice but to conform." (496)
• "If lived space occurs at the nexus of the real and the imagined, the physical and the metaphorical, then any statements about virtual space as lived must acknowledge such blurred boundaries." (497)
• ". . . an agentic shift that routinely occurs between people and technology: a transition of agency away from users and onto technology itself." (498)
• "We need first to examine the degree of agency enabled by the space; and if it is not enough, perhaps we should refuse the space altogether. Of course critique and refusal are in and of themselves versions of composing space as lived; they help to produce its meaning and scope." (499)
• "We need to recognize the subjective nature of any discourse we rely on—spatial metaphor or otherwise—and work in the realms of the alternative and the subversive." (500)
• "If higher education is to be a site for democratic dialogue and negotiations of difference, we will need to resist the homogenizing spatial practices of our online environments." (503)
• "If we recognize space as an architectonic, social-epistemic mode of production, inherently ideological and always already political, then we are obligated to ask the very questions we’ve been asking of discourse and literature: Whose space is it? Who is privileged in this space and who is not? Who is excluded? Who is represented, and how, and for whose ends? What are the political consequences (intended or unintended) of spatial design? And what are the consequences for those in a space, on the margins of it, or outside it? What are their goals? What are ours in relation to it? To what degree do we teach ourselves and our students to read space? To produce space? What might this suggest for what and how, not to mention where, we teach?" (503)
• ". . . more of us in English studies need to be collaborating with software designers so that virtual spaces can be, from the start, informed by our disciplinary goals and pedagogical values." (504)
• "Whatever our responses, they need to be active; they need to contribute to producing virtual environments as lived spaces situated at and expressive of the abstract and material conditions of our existence." (504)

The Future of Rational-Critical Debate in Online Public Spheres

by Matt Barton (2005)

• "The Internet is losing its democraticizing features and is becoming everyday more like our newspapers and television, controlled from above by powerful multinational corporations, who demand passivity from an audience of total consumers." (177)

• "Of course, the outcome of this struggle is not determined by technology itself, but rather by the social conditions that lead to the production and adoption of technologies." (177)

• "In short, the more complex and expensive the process of creating a professional web site becomes, the fewer people will be able to do so. The workers are being gradually, yet effectively, separated from the means of intellectual production."
• ". . . three highly relevant online writing environments that stand opposed to this separation: blogs, discussion boards, and wikis. These powerful tools offer a way for people to easily and cheaply publish their writings online." (178)

• "Wikis differ from blogs and discussion boards in that they offer a radical approach to authorship. Simply put, wikis are web sites that anyone can edit; communities rather than individual authors author them. Of these three online writing environments, wikis seem to offer the most to writers interested in collaboration and consensus-building." (178)

• "Speaking of “Digital Rights Management”: "These features will make it harder for Internet users to freely share copyrighted or protected works and reduce the effectiveness of the Internet as a platform for rational-critical debate. (178)

• "Three types of rights are preconditions for the formation of this sphere. The first is the ability to engage in discussions critical of the ruling institutions. These rights include freedom of press and assembly, freedom of petition, the right to vote, and so on. The second set of rights involves the “individual’s status as a free human being, grounded in the intimate sphere of the patriarchal conjugal family” (p.83). The patriarchal conjugal family is critical because it provides a feeling of independence, ideas of love and freedom, and a desire to cultivate oneself; in short, a real private sphere (p.48).Without a proper private sphere, people are incapable of genuine human relations (p. 48). Finally, there are the rights regarding private property, such as its protection (p. 83). (179)

• "According to Feenberg (2002), “Private control of media conglomerates, the machinery of opinion, is incompatible with serious public debate” (p. 27). (180)
• "C.W. Mills’ definitions of these terms. Because these definitions are useful in a discussion of wikis and other online writing spaces, they are worth quoting here:

Public: (1) Virtually as many people express opinions as receive them. (2) Public communications are so organized that there is a chance immediately and effectively to answer back any opinion expressed in public. Opinion formed by such discussion (3) readily finds an outlet in effective action, even against—if necessary—the prevailing system of authority. And (4) authoritative institutions do not penetrate the public, which is thus more or less autonomous in its operation. (p. 249)

Mass: (1) far fewer people express opinions than receive them; for the community of publics becomes an abstract collection of individuals who receive impressions from the mass media. (2) The communications that prevail are so organized that it is difficult or impossible for the individual to answer back immediately or with any effect. (3) The realization of opinion in action is controlled by authorities who organize and control the channels of such action. (4) The mass has no autonomy from institutions; on the contrary, agents of authorized institutions penetrate this mass, reducing any autonomy it may have in the formation of opinion by discussion. (p. 249) (180)

• "These three online writing spaces share several features. For one, all were designed with simplicity in mind; they do not require sophisticated software or knowledge of software coding." (182)

• "Secondly, these online writing environments encourage users to engage in public discussion . . ." (182)

• "A final key similarity is that visitors to these writing spaces are most often treated as equals and are generally open to all." (182)

• "Unlike blogs and online bulletin boards, wikis do not distinguish between authors and readers, but emphasize only the text itself."

• "Leuf and Cunningham (2001) have maintained, “experience shows that in fact little damage is done to wiki content even in the absence of security mechanisms” (p. 17); the wiki’s openness may itself “make it less of a tempting target” (p. 333). (183)

• "Not all wikis allow casual visitors to edit them. These wikis require users to register and use a login and password before making changes to wiki content . . . However, these uses of wikis are, for many reasons, resisting the very features of wikis that make them exciting and relevant for rational-critical debate. For the purposes of this discussion, the term wiki will refer to those that anonymous users can freely edit and which discourage a feeling of authorship." (183)

• "Leuf and Cunningham (2001) have argued, “Wiki is inherently democratic” (p. 17). It is no surprise, then, that the best metaphor to describe a wiki’s function is that of a state constitution. Wikis are democratic in that the apparent status of individual users is not observed, but also in a more profound way: Wikis emphasize a progressive, democratic aspect of writing that is mostly ignored by the commercial press, where only the finished product is represented." (187)

• "The strength of the wiki, then, is its presentation of a document as a process of rational critical debate towards a specific goal." (187)

• "Wikis, independent for the time being from external administration of any sort, may enable the reconstruction of the bourgeois public sphere of the eighteenth century, though in a decidedly different form. Perhaps an upcoming generation, finding subjectivity in blogs, developing rational-critical debating skills in online bulletin boards, and building a critical public sphere with the help of wikis will help “remediate culture” and restore true democracy to the public (Bolter, 2001, p. 208)." (188)

• ". . . wikis challenge notions of traditional authority and traditional academic legitimatingcriteria." (189)

• "Because they continuously subject writing to constant scrutiny, wikis can perhaps be more trusted than content from commercial publishers." (189)

• "Finally, wikis provide that space where students strive for consensus and learn to share a common, community voice. I feel it is unlikely that students will succeed at building wikis and also learn to speak with a community voice unless they have first developed a personal voice and sense of identity." (189)

• ". . . a truly enabling composition pedagogy will acknowledge the need for students to move slowly, first gaining a voice, then strengthening that voice in a rhetorical arena, and, finally, fusing that voice to others committed to social action." (189-90)

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High School Students (and Teachers) Write Collaboratively on a Wiki

by Paul Allison (2005)

• "I'm going to tell one of our wiki stories because I think it shows two things: both how simple it is to begin composing together with students, and how profoundly paradigm-shifting a wiki can be in the writing classroom."

Making the Case for a Wiki

by Emma Tonkin (2005)

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Romantic Poetry Meets 21st-Century Technology: With Wikis, the New Web Tool, Everybody’s an Editor and a Critic

by Brock Read (2005)

• "The professors argue that the communal Web sites promote a more casual, flexible form of class discussion than blogs and message boards.

And some campus wiki enthusiasts are making the case that the technology can actually change students' writing for the better, by encouraging them to swap ideas with their classmates and to continually revise their work, instead of turning in a paper and forgetting it forever."

• "Mr. Phillipson says it is exciting to see students riff so casually on such a revered poem, and he credits the wiki for enlivening the discussion. "I think the students are seduced by the technology into doing something above and beyond," he says."
• "Like blogs, wikis aim to demystify Web publishing by letting anyone print their thoughts online. But wikis go a step further: They typically allow anyone who happens upon them to add material, edit existing content, or even delete information."
• "As a wiki grows, these networks of links become more labyrinthine. And concepts like authorship and organization take a back seat to the exchange of ideas, at least in theory. The ideal wiki is "a group of serious people working out a way of looking at things," says M.C. Morgan, a professor of English at Bemidji State University, who has taught courses with wikis for a couple of years."
• "Writers who understand the technology, Mr. Morgan argues, can use wikis to look at their craft in a new way. Traditionally, writers complete a draft or two, proofread their work, revise it, and consider it finished. But wiki writers, Mr. Morgan says, are more likely to use a process he calls "refactoring": posting shards of text, spinning them off into larger pieces, reworking material constantly instead of doing so at set points during the writing process."
• ""On a wiki, the writing space is just a browser window," Mr. Morgan says. "Students see it as pretty plastic, and they're less apprehensive about throwing things out or reorganizing themselves than when they're using Microsoft Word.""

Teaching, Learning, and Other Uses for Wikis in Academia: All Users Are Not Necessarily Created Equal

by Jude Higdon (2005)

Using Wikis as Collaborative Writing Tools: Something Wiki This Way Comes-or Not!

by Susan Loudermilk Garza (2005)

V-Z

Wikis

by Laurel A Clyde (2005)

• "Wikis support collaborative activity by providing a format for the submission of contributions, a way of organizing and updating the site, and automatic maintenance of the links among pages and to external sites. Users do not need to possess sophisticated web skills to take part in developing a wiki, though setting up a wiki does require more skills." (no pagintation)
• "Wikis used as a basis for group work require some communication skills on the part of participants because not everyone is good at communicating ideas or working with other people." (no paginatation)

The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community

by D. Calvin Andrus (2005)

• "We must transform the Intelligence Community into a community that dynamically reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes."
• "One of the Wikipedia’s strengths is also a weakness—no points of view."
• "A healthy market of debatable ideas emerges from the sharing of points of view."
• "The Wiki, as it matures, will serve as corporate knowledge and will not be as fickle as the Blog. The Wiki will be authoritative in nature, while the Blog will be highly agile. The Blog is personal and opinionated. The Wiki is agreed-upon and corporate."

Wiki Products: A Comparison

by Carl Challborn and Teresa Reimann (2005)

Wiki: Web Collaboration

by Anja Ebersbach, Markus Glaser, and Richard Heigl (2005)

Wiki: The New Way to Collaborate

by Angelo Fernando (2004)

• "Blogging, says PR practitioner Mike Manuel, helped "to psychologically acclimate people to publishing content online, which has in turn really primed the pumps for wikis." (8)
• "A wiki, he [Mike Manuel] says, is an essential tool in ever PR practitioners toolbox." (8)
• "A wiki is the ultimate collaborative tool for groups of users, even on a global scale, especially if they want to create and edit content on the fly as a project moves forward--an area where e-mail is extremely unhelpful." (8)
• "Wikis are finding their place because e-mail is really an "information graveyard," he [Constantin Basturea] says, unsuitable to the task of real teamwork." (8)
• "That suggest wiki are more participatory--what Dan Forbush calls "listservs on steriods." (8)
• "(WYSIWYG, pronounced, "whiz-ee-wig," stands for "What you see is what you get" and is an application that allows users to see on their computer screen exactly what will appear on the printed document.) (8).

Wikipedia and The Disappearing Author

by Nora Miller (2005)

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