fostering collaboration with wikis and weblogs darlene fichter data library coordinator, u of s...
TRANSCRIPT
Fostering Collaboration with Wikis and Weblogs
Darlene Fichter
Data Library Coordinator, U of S Library
October 26, 2005
Overview
Collaboration– Trends
Examples– Weblogs– Wikis
What to use when?
Collaboration Happens at Different Levels
Community level– Relatively intense interactions– Rheingold - “enough people carry on public discussions
long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace."
Network level– Interaction based around a topic or subject
Team level– Based around a project, task, process
Tim Berners-Lee
The Web is “an information space through which people can communicate, but communicate in a special way: communicate by sharing their knowledge in a pool. The idea was not just that it should be a browsing medium. The idea was that everybody would be putting their ideas in, as well as taking them out.”
Tim Berners-Lee, talk at MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) 35th Anniversary celebrations, April 14, 1999 www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tlb.html
Technologies & Online Collaboration
– Discussion forums– Email– Instant messaging– Newsgroups– Webcasts– Web conferencing– Weblogs
– Team rooms– Instant messaging– Text messaging/wireless– RSS– Wiki– Expertise location– FOAF
Enterprise Collaboration Study
Ambrozek and Cothrel surveyed a number of corporations about their use of collaboration tools for employees and for customers– Integral to how we operate today – cannot operate
without online collaboration– Past the early adoption phase and the reluctance to
participate has eroded
Online Communities in Business 2004: Past Progress, Future Directions. Jenny Ambrozek and Joesph Cothrel http://www.kwork.org/Stars/ambrozek/ambrozek_cothrel.html
Reality Check
Hard to quantify and measure the ROI for online communities/collaboration
The requirements for creating and maintaining communities is poorly understood
Trends: Customers
Continuing to expand in the use of technologies
Different platforms and different functionality
Trends: Employees
Narrowing to focus on team rooms or electronic workspaces and expertise location
Technology Trends
Jenny Ambrozek and Joesph Cothrel. Online Communities in Business: Past Progress, Future Directions. 7th International Conference on Virtual Communities The Hague, Netherlands. June 15, 2004 http://www.infonortics.com/vc/vc04/slides/cothrel.pdf
What is a Weblog?
Blog/ Weblog isA web page containing brief entries arranged
chronologicallyCan be a a journal or diary, ‘What’s New’
page or links to other web sites“To me, the blog concept is about three things: Frequency, Brevity, and Personality.”
Evan Williams (creator of Blogger)
Weblogs are More
They have been called personal web publishing communities*
Weblogs don’t stand alone– Relate / link to other blogs and the world– Connect people together with a common interest
*Dave Winer http://newhome.weblogs.com/personalWebPublishingCommunities
Weblog Usage
90% of corporations are using weblogs or plan to use weblogs according to Guidewire’s survey in September 2005
Blogging in the Enterprise: Executive Summary from the Guidewire
Group Market Cycle Survey - October 2005
Primary Uses of Internal Weblogs
Knowledge-sharing (63%)Internal communications (44%) Project management (30%) Personal knowledge management (23%) Event logging (23%) Team management (20%)
Blogging in the Enterprise: Executive Summary from the Guidewire
Group Market Cycle Survey - October 2005
Key Benefits
Improved internal communications (77%)Replacement of other exiting work processes (41%)Replacement of email (39%)
Blogging in the Enterprise: Executive Summary from the Guidewire
Group Market Cycle Survey - October 2005
Blogs & Library Collaboration: Customers
Blogs: Professional Development
Library Examples: Internal Collaboration
Reference Desk weblogsLearning Commons or IT Help Desk
blogsTeam or departmental blogsProject or committee blogs
What is a “Wiki”?
Web application invented by Ward Cunningham in 1994 that allows anyone to add content and anyone to edit it. “It’s a tool for collaboration, really, we don’t know
quite what it is by it’s a fun way of communicating asynchronously across the network”.
Wiki means “quick” in Hawaiian
Wikis Characteristics
Intended to be a simple to use as writing so you can focus on the content, not the mechanics and syntax
No HTML required
Wiki Pages
Home Page Contact Us Subjects Databases
edit edit editedit
Wiki pages look like web pagesAnyone with a web browser can read a wiki site
Click, Type and Save
edit editsave
...Internet Librarian 2005
...Internet Librarian 2005
Creating New Pages
Title
… NewName …
edit edit
NewName
Create a new page by writing its name with at leat two upper case letters i.e. CamelCase Click on any WikiName to see pages that link to it
Collaboration Applications
DiscussionsMeeting notes and reportsShared knowledge repositoryCollaborative writingCourse based wikisCommunities
Wiki Examples: Wikipedia
Wikipedia: Recent Changes
Wikipedia: London Bombings
It shows the first 923 edits to the Wikipedia entry
Movie Link of changes
Wikipedia: Viewing History
Wikipedia: Talk Page
Wiki Gardeners
Person who goes around tidying up the wiki, pruning, editing, organizing, and cleaning up
Usually liked and respected
WikiTravel
WikiFish: community
Students, staff, faculty at the Auburn University School of Architecture
IAwiki:community
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
What Would Batgirl Do?
University of Connecticut Libraries' Staff Wiki
Ohio University Libraries Biz Wiki
Conference Wiki
MIT B-Team
Installed Wiki Software Feature Chart*
*Tonkin, Emma. Making the Case for a Wiki. Ariadne, January 2005
“Hosted” Wikis
pbWiki http://pbwiki.com/Seedwiki http://www.seedwiki.com/XWiki http://www.xwiki.com
Hosted Wiki Feature Chart– http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki
“Enterpise Blog” and “Enterprise Wiki”
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Years
Number of Web Pages Containing a Specific Phrase
Enterprise wikiEnterprise blog
Wikis WeblogsUnstructured
Default is anyone edits
Management is easier: versions, rollback and change long
Less familiar
Default is by date, reverse chronological
Anyone comments
New entries are shown as “RSS”, edits not usually tracked
More familiar
Want Both?
Commercial solutions– Socialtext, Confluence
Free solutions: “blikis”– Hosted, installed, plugins such as MoinMt for
Movable Type
Brainstorm: Library Collaboration
What is your purpose?– Which tool?
More Information on Wikis and Blogs
My Furl Archive– Wikis …– http://www.furl.net/members/fichter
Steven Cohen’s and Jenny Levine’s Internet Librarian presentations – http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2005/
10/25/blogs_vs_wikis_presentation.html
Thank you
Questions?
Darlene Fichter University of Saskatchewan Libraries
library.usask.ca/~fichter/