Sorry that I haven’t posted in a while…. I’ve been busy…I am making a wiki. What is a wiki? Well unless you have been living under a cyber rock, you have heard of the most famous wiki of them all… Wikipedia. A wiki is at it’s most basic form, a website that anyone can edit. It is a fantastic way for an organization, group or anyone to help contribute to the free speech and information sharing through the web.
Wikipedia is a type of wiki but was created to be a site dedicated to what you would find on an encyclopedia. For instance, Google “football” and one of the first responses is a Wikipedia page outlining everything that you would possibly want to know about football – from it’s history, rules, players, etc. The best thing about this is not only do you get all of the information that you may need, but you can also add your two cents (as long as it is factual) onto the site. Now anyone who researches football can read your input on the topic. You can contribute – which is what makes a wiki so special.
Now, I am not making a Wikipedia site… I’ve been tasked with creating a wiki for admitted and current students within the Simon School of Business (which just so happens to be where I am currently enrolled as an MBA student). This has been a new experience for me, as like you, I have heard of Wikipedia, but never considered making my own wiki site. The goal of our site is to be an informal way for students to communicate with each other in terms of all things Simon. For example, where to live in Rochester is a hot topic among students – do I live on campus, in the city, near campus but not within campus housing? Well the wiki contains testimonials from current students who live in each of the different areas. As an incoming student, I can visit the wiki and have a clear idea of what the pro’s and con’s of each area of residence is. This is an innovative idea, as we are reaching beyond the politically driven knowledge that students are given by the administration and directly into what Simon students do.
Determining how to create the wiki was challenging. Simon already has a Wikipedia site (check it out), as well as both internal and external websites, so we needed to create something within a new space. I also wanted the wiki to be easy to use for the less technical student body, password protected for administrators vs. members, not available for general observation and lastly, free. In order to find my perfect software option I had to do some research. First I went to Wikihow which helped me to understand my impending task and provide some guidance on how to do it. I then went to WikiMatrix to determine which wiki software would meet all of my specifications. WikiMatrix asks 5-7 simple questions to find out what your requirements are and then spit out approximately 12 options for me to use. I then went to each of the websites to find which software option I liked best and ultimately choose to use Wikispaces. So far I have been very happy with my software selection… it is very easy to use, free, web-hosted, provides update history (very important in case something derogatory is posted) and metric on views and updates. The only downside that I have seen so far is that there are few wiki templates, however there is an option for users to create their own template from scratch, and also a few ways to be creative.
Our Simon Student Wiki is yet to go live (target is the beginning of December), however so far it has been receiving great feedback. I’ll be sure to update you all on the success and challenges of the wiki as the project progresses!
