NSS Enriching Knowledge for Information and Communication Technology Curriculum
Series: (5) Latest Technologies on 'Internet Services & Applications' and 'Wireless
Computer Network' (CDI020071828)
28 Feb 2008
The What & Why of Wikis CUHK
February 28, 2008
Irwin King
Computer Science & Engineering The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Today’s Outline
• Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0
• Why Wikis?
• What are Wikis?
• Wiki-related Issues
• Concluding remarks
Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0
• A term proposed by Tim O’Reilly to describe the contemporary web
• Modern way of using it
• New tide of web applications
• “Second generation” web
Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0
Social network Sales channel
Free information Fee-based advertising
Audiences = Authors B2B and B2C
User-contributed Company-oriented
As a platform/tool As a book/magazine
Blog, wiki, wikis Website,
encyclopedia, CMS
AJAX, CSS HTML, Java, Flash
Web 2.0 Web 1.0
TechnologyUsage
Web 2.0 Meme Map
Summary
• Web as a medium vs. Web as a platform
• Technology-centric vs. User-centric
• Individualistic vs. Group/Collective Behavior
• Consumer vs. Producer
• Transactional vs. Relational
• Restrictive vs. Empowerment
• Top-down vs. Bottom-up
• People-to-Machine vs. People-to-People
• Search & browse vs. Publish & subscribe
• Closed application vs. Service-oriented services
• Functionality vs. Utility
• Data vs. Value
Frustrated About Workflow At Work?
• Information can’t be shared easily
• Information can’t be managed easily
• Revision can’t be recorded easily
• Applications are inflexible and not easily extended
How About Wikis?
• 1995: Ward Cunningham created the first wiki, http://c2.com
• Inspired by Apple’s HyperCard
• Wikiwikiweb
• Wikiwiki is a Hawaiian to mean quick
• Wiki is closer to the original idea of web by Tim Berners-Lee: More like a notepad than a book
• Wiki = Wikipedia - pedia (knowledge content)
Wiki’s Advantages
• Free
• Open source
• Collaborative document management
• Decentralized control of centralized data
• Simple to set-up & maintain
• Simple to edit
• Indexable and searchable
• Revision control
• Extensible
• Flexible structure (ontology)
• …
Corporate Success Stories
• Nokia has been using Socialtext wiki software for a year and a half to facilitate information exchange within its Insight & Foresight
group.
• Yahoo uses Twiki software to help its development team overcome the problems associated with working from a variety of separate locations.
• Michelin China also uses Twiki as a knowledge management tool.
• Jean-Noel Simonnet, from the company's IT department, writes,
"Our purpose was to share ALL the information, procedures, setup documents, so that we were less dependent on a particular staff member knowledge, so that nobody in the team has any document left in a personal directory.”
• Kodak, Cingular, Disney, Motorola, and SAP are also among the notable companies with wiki success stories.
Wiki’s Checklist
Consider if
• To establish a company intranet
quickly and cheaply without sacrificing functionality, security, or durability
• To publish a range of corporate documents in one universally
accessible location and let employees manage those documents with a
minimum of effort, lag, and risk of redundancy
• To manage and organize meeting notes, team agendas, and company calendars.
• Need a project management tool that is cheap (if not free), extensible, and accessible through any Web browser.
• Need a central location where shared documents can be viewed and revised by a large and/or dispersed team.
Might not be useful if
• Need to use complex file formats.
Some wiki platforms can support only text or HTML files.
• Don't have a staff member who can take responsibility for its use. A wiki is only as good as its ontology (or the search engine it uses). You will need somebody who can establish
conventions for naming pages and maintaining links.
• The collaborative format isn't appropriate for your group or
workplace. Peer review is not always the best solution for content
management.
• Looking for an exchange of views.
Wikis are not the best tool for airing opinions or carrying on conversations.
If that's your primary goal, use a blog instead.
How About Wikipedia?
• 2001: Jimmy Wales and
Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia, http://wikipedia.org
• The largest and most famous project using wiki in the world
• Dec 2005: 50,000th Chinese article
• Mar 2006: 1 millionth English article
• 1.34 million independent articles (excluding translations)
• 13.6 edits per page in average
• > 2 million wikipedians
• 9000 requests per second
• > 700Mbit/s outgoing traffic
What Is A Wiki?
• Wiki is defined as “the simplest online database that could possibly work.”
• Wiki is a set of web pages that anyone--or at least anyone with permission--can create or edit
• Wiki is an engine to convert wiki text into HTML
• There are many variant of wiki engines:
UseMod, Kwiki, Twiki, MoinMoin, PmWiki, MediaWiki, DokuWiki, …
Variety of Wikis
Comparing Wikis
Significance of Wiki
• Separating content from presentation
• CSS: To take care
of the style and layout
• Wiki: A compact and clean way to write the content in plain text format
Strength of Wiki Text
• Fewer elements
• easier to learn
• Unique representation
• less confusing to edit
• Clean and compact
• easy to read and edit
• Tidy
• easy for machine to format it, and
encourages the use of CSS
Strength of Wiki Engines
• Plain text-based
• Easier to search, index and do statistics
• Cost-effective to archive the content
• Change log
• Plain text makes us easier to find changes
• Easier to do version control
Strength of Wiki Engines
• Change log and differences
Strength of Wiki Engines
• Extensible using templates and plug-ins
Strength of Wiki Engines
• Browser is the one-stop solution
• Can do all these:
Reading, editing, previewing, access control, management, archiving, etc.
• Changes are instant and direct
• Shortened the revision cycle
Wiki Applications
• Course homepages
• Easier to update and do minor editing (e.g. homeworks, lecture notes)
• Reduce the workload on homepage maintainence
• Conference homepages
• Facilitates two-way communication and discussion on research
• Example: http://sigcomm06.stanford.edu/discussion/
Wiki Applications
• Documentation and Collaboration
• Distributed working style
• Knowledge management and sharing
• Timely updating
• Revision control
• Example: Gentoo Linux Wiki
Business Tools
• JotSpot
• Started by the co-founders of Excite
• A cross between a wiki and a database
• Not open-source
• Additional features to handle forms and external data
• Socialtext
• Based on the open-source Kwiki
• Ships a standalone appliance with software installed
• Confluence
• Composed of almost exclusively of open-source libraries
• Provides licensees with the source code
JotSpot
Socialtext
Confluence
Summary
• Wiki is a powerful information collaboration platform on the web
• Harness collective intelligence to collect, manipulate, mange, and share information
• It is searchable and indexable
• It is flexible and extensible
References
• How To Use Wikis For Business, InformationWeek, August 8, 2005.
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?
articleID=167600331
• WWW could mean worldwide wiki, C/Net News, July 17, 2006.
http://news.com.com/2061-12572_3-6094967.html
• Wikis: A Killer Collaboration Tool, ITBusinessEdge, Jan. 3, 2006.
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=10427
• Wikis get down to business, C/Net News, July 25, 2006.
http://news.com.com/Wikis+get+down+to+business/2009- 1038_3-6098200.html
