Wikis

This is my 7th blog entry and this one is going to be about Wikis. A Wiki is a page or collection of Web pages. They are deigned to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute of change the content. They are often used to create collaborative websites and also to power community websites. They are used in business to provide intranet and Knowledge Management systems. The developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, Ward Cunningham, said that it was, "the simplest online database that could possibly work". WikiWikiWeb was designed in 1994. It was installed on the Internet on March 25, 1995. A Wiki invites all users to edit any page or to form new pages inside the Wiki. This does not need any extra add-ons. They are not carefully crafted sites for casual visitiors, but it seek to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of of creation and collaboration. they enable documents to be written collaboratively using a web browser. New pages can be created with ease and are very easy to update.



A good wiki is not complicated and is easy to navigate around the site. It allows people to add things as long as they are members. The Science Museum Wiki is successful as they can get feedback on what their visitors think of the Museum, rather than having to fill in questionnaires. They put info and pictures of objects in their museum and the visitors comment on them.

The Wiki for Lenovo Thinkpads is also successful as it gives product info. for potntial. buyers. This removes the hassle of having to phone Customer Support, which is often very time-consuming. Instead, one can post their question on the Wiki, and someone alse will answer it.

I think that Wikis are very useful as a group of students could create one and pull all the info together to have a much better document than each individual would have had had they done it on their own.