How to use a wiki for study and research

Wiki’s can be a great collaboration tool in study and research (and we’re not talking about quoting Wikipedia sources in essays!).  In this extract from Studying and Researching with Social Media, Megan Poore discusses the use of wikis in higher education, and shares one of the starter activities from her book on creating your own wiki.

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WHAT IS A WIKI?

A wiki is a website that allows people with access to easily edit, add to, and delete webpages and/or their contents. Wikis are very similar in appearance to ordinary websites that have ‘static’ information on them; the difference is that you cannot edit regular websites but you can edit a wiki. Wikis are thus typically created by groups of people as they seek to build and share knowledge on a topic or topics (unlike globs, which are normally – but not always – written by individuals). In this way, wikis are about the ongoing process of knowledge construction around a particular topic and contributors collaborate on a wiki to build a webspace that constantly changes, according to what the community knows at any given point. Therefore, a wiki is by its nature a ‘work in progress’ and the knowledge that it contains is always ‘unfinished’.

Wikipedia is probably the best-known example of a wiki. Wikipedia is a website that anyone can contribute to by creating and editing articles on any topic. It is important to understand that Wikipedia is just an example of a wiki – not all wikis are Wikipedia, however.

WIKIS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Wikis are used for both study and research purposes. If you are a student, you need to know that there are some typical educational models that lecturers work within when they ask you to complete an assignment by using a wiki. Having a general ‘feel’ for how your lecturer (or research team, if you are a researcher) is using the wiki, and appreciating the rationale that lies behind such use, will help you understand what’s required of the particular wiki task you have been set.

VIDEO CLIP Wikis in Plain English To get an overview of how wikis work, watch CommonCraft’s ‘Wikis in Plain English’ video

Typical wiki tasks set by lecturers

Learning-focused wikis are generally used when lecturers want you to undertake one or more of the following tasks – research teams often use wikis in a similar fashion:

Contributing to pages

§  The main feature of a wiki is its pages. Wikipages are just like regular webpages except that people can easily edit them and add their own content (think of Wikipedia)

§  How the pages are organised and structured will depend on how your lecturer has designed the wiki task

§  In some cases, your lecturer will expect the class to structure the wiki itself, that is, from scratch; this means that students decide as a whole how best to organise the wikipages

§  In other cases, however, your lecturer will already have created a ‘shell’ or a set of pages that provides a basic structure for your wiki.

This structure is, of course, usually based around key course themes, and provides an example of the single class wiki described above. Your job is to take the basic shell and add to it – but how this happens will vary. Some lecturers will want everyone just to build the wiki in a fairly ad hoc manner, with people deciding when and where they want to contribute; other lecturers will put you into small groups and ask you to contribute to one section, theme, or area only. Small group tasks such as this may be undertaken either on a single class wiki or on multiple class wikis. Sometimes, lecturers will set a word limit on pages. You need to know if this applies to your situation.

Contributing to and using the discussion forum

Your class wiki’s discussion forum can be used in one or both of two ways.

§  First, if your lecturer is using a wiki purely for administration purposes then you will likely be expected to post any administrative queries (such as those relating to readings, assignments, lecture times, etc.) in the forum, as opposed to emailing your lecturer directly

§  Second, you may be asked to contribute to the forum as part of the assignment you have been set, which will mean that you are expected to participate in online discussions around course themes and content – that is, the intellectual content of what you are meant to be studying.

Being part of a wiki group

Some lecturers use the wiki medium as a way of getting students to do group work; after all, wikis are perfect for this purpose. Your group will be expected to build a page or set of pages around key course themes and then have your contributions assessed – either as a group, individually (remember, your lecturer can track your individual activity on the wiki by using the history function), or both. If you’re not sure about how group work is being assessed, ask your lecturer.

Editing others’ work

The whole point of a wiki is that its content gets built up over time as the wiki community adds to and refines its understanding of a topic. If your lecturer is using a learning-focused wiki model then it is highly likely that you will be expected to edit other students’ work. Some students find this idea uncomfortable for a number of reasons, but, for now, know that there is a very high probability that your lecturer will require you to undertake wiki tasks that may require the alteration of others’ contributions.

ACTIVITY: Create your own wiki

Why not try setting up your own wiki?  Follow Megan’s instructions and see for yourself what’s involved.

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Text and activity extracted from Studying and Researching with Social Media by Megan Poore.