Wikis in Instruction
From WolfWikis
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General Overview
What is a wiki?
A wiki is a type of Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki)
The Wikis in Plain English video (3 min 52 sec) gives a simple overview of wikis.
There are many different wiki applications; The particular wiki app that powers Wikipedia (as well as WolfWikis) is called MediaWiki.
Some wiki examples
- Wikipedia (online encyclopedia)
- Wookieepedia (Star Wars encyclopedia)
What is "WolfWikis"?
WolfWikis (available at http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu) is the name of the wiki service that is available to current students, faculty, and staff at North Carolina State University. WolfWikis is a service provided by NCSU Libraries to support the personal and curricular activities of the NC State community. All you need to get started is your NC State Unity ID and password.
When To Use a Wiki?
(adapted from the Online Community Reports' When to Use a Wiki? list)
1) Wikis work well for groups that already know each other.
2) Wikis work well for "co-assembly" in addition to "co-editing". Projects requiring different individuals to contribute different pieces of a whole lend themselves well to wikis.
3) Wikis work well when a clear nucleus is provided. Users are more likely to "edit" than "create", so providing an instructive starting framework offering examples (and even stubs, encouraging people to edit from there) is helpful. Students need a structure to help them figure out how to use the wiki.
4) Wikis work well with a clear final product in mind. If you are building a user manual, a notes archive, or a conference web site, having a well-defined final product is very helpful.
5) Wikis work well in documenting consensus rather than opinions. If you seek an archive of opinions tied to authorship, a message board is more effective.
Wikis in Instruction
Wikis can be a good platform for collaborative work among your students. They can be used as informal collaborative spaces for students to work together on a project or be used more formally as a collectively developed website to share with a broader community. Instructors have used wikis to allow students to develop class-created glossaries, work collaboratively on projects, and build websites centered on course content.
Instructional Examples
Free-form writing spaces
- A wiki can be used to provide students with an area for sharing content created in collaboration or individually:
- Collaborative space for students needing to write together
- BUS 480 Group Project (WolfWikis)
- Collaborative or individual brainstorming space
- Interview Guide Brainstorming in EAC 538: Instructional Strategies (WolfWikis)
- Informal sharing of resources
- EAC 595C wiki - Technology in Student Affairs (WolfWikis)
Structured writing spaces
Students individually or in groups develop web-based content to share with their classmates or an external audience. This kind of wiki space needs to have thoughtful structure so students understand where they need to contribute content.
NOTE -- You can organize student contribution/collaboration in different ways:
- Students can be split into groups with responsibility for various sections of an overall information resource
- Students can be given individual responsibility for various sections of an overall information resource
- Students can sign up for class activities/events
Examples:
- Students can create a glossary of course-related terminology
- Plant Turf Glossary - Ohio State University
- Students can create a structured collection of course resources
- Gaming & Social Networks (WolfWikis)
- The wiki can serve as a launch site to wiki pages for which different students have primary responsibility
- ENG 463 Victorian Literature wiki (WolfWikis)
- Environmental Toxicology (WolfWikis)
- Multiple contributors can create a coherent web document or website
- Social Movements Wiki - Columbia University
- Educational Games - San Diego State (see the Educational Games course assignment)
Student Contributions to Wikipedia
- Students can contribute content to Wikipedia.
- See Wikipedia: School and university projects for examples from academic institutions around the world.
Assessment
- “History” feature of a wiki allows you to check on student contributions.
- Students write up short commentaries on their collaboration with others and/or contributions to the course wiki and turn them in to the instructor.
- Students in groups suggest grades for their group and group members. The instructor uses these self-assessments in addition to overall assessment of work to create a grade.
- A grading rubric may be useful for assessment and for modeling quality contributions. By providing a rubric that includes descriptions and/or examples of excellent, adequate, and unacceptable work, the student can better understand how their work will be assessed.
Other Considerations and Potential Challenges
General considerations
- Wikis are often freely open for anyone to edit, but different wiki providers may have different policies related to access and editing permissions. Some wikis will allow anyone in the general public to edit their pages, but others might restrict access or editing rights. When using a wiki service, make sure you understand who will be able to edit your content.
- In an instructional context, it is important to establish norms and guidelines for student participation. Collaboration doesn't just happen. Do students understand the nature of writing collaboratively on a wiki? Do they understand how a wiki works? Do they understand how to structure their writing according to your particular assignment? An instructor might provide template pages, writing examples, or at the very least, clear, explicit instructions for students.
WolfWikis-specific considerations
- Several issues related to wikis in instruction are discussed on the WolfWikis Information For Faculty page.
- Applicable NCSU Policies: NCSU Rules for Use of NCSU Libraries "Wolfblogs" Service (these rules also apply to use of WolfWikis)
- Wolfwikis are public: All pages within WolfWikis are viewable by anyone with a Web connection. All pages within Wolfwikis can be edited by anyone with a valid Unity ID.
- Deleting content: WolfWikis pages cannot easily be deleted. As an author, you can change or remove the contents of a page, but the page will still exist. In addition, the content of all previous versions of the page will still be recorded in that page's history.
- Student privacy: Under the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) and NC State's FERPA regulation, a student's "education records" are protected from disclosure to third parties. The inherently public nature of WolfWikis means that students must provide written consent for any required wiki participation in a course setting. FERPA Consent Form for Course Wiki Participation (.doc file)
Potential challenges
(from writingwiki.org)
- Wikis conflict with traditional assumptions about authorship and intellectual property.
- Students are sometimes reluctant to contribute to wikis because they lack confidence in their writing, they worry about not receiving credit for contributions, or they do not like their ideas, words, contributions being revised or deleted without consent.
- Some teachers and students are uncomfortable about the advantages and disadvantages of public writing.
- Some technology averse students do not like having to learn how to use wikis and/or find even the relatively simple steps for editing or posting work daunting.
- Because Wikis are not presentation software, use of visuals and design options are limited.
- Although selecting "restore" to replace content that was inadvertently deleted or intentionally hacked is easy, the editing process is nonetheless a hassle.