WikiCollaborative tool for building documents

Anjesh Tuladhar

Why Wiki ?

Once upon a time, there were 4 people working in an office…a draft is prepared and shared with everyone to work on it

Everyone worked on it and created their own version and emailed back to the team leader

Now the team leader has 4 documents to work on it and update changes

This is second scenario

The team leader changes the document and emails it to all saying “Please ignore the first one. Use second instead.”

The members have to work on both the document to reflect the changes. They struggle on...

Everyone emails to everyone. Everyone is struggling.

It doesn’t have to be like this!

Use Wiki

What is Wiki?

• A way of letting many people work on the same version of a document

• An environment that allows you to – make any sort of changes to the document – track those changes – see who else has changed the document – get a notification as soon as anyone else changes the

document– …

• An environment for a living document

More on Wiki…

• A database driven website • An excellent tool for collaboration where we

can easily make changes online• Can give you fully editable websites

– Any user can read and add/edit content (e.g. Wikipedia)

Back in time…• First developed in 1994/95 by Ward Cunningham • Hawaiian word ‘WikiWiki’ means fast

– First named as Wiki Wiki Web– Later shortened to ‘Wiki’

Cunningham said. "So after I did about 25 pages, I said this is really quick. And I was going to call it QuickWeb, kind of like QuickBase. Then I remembered from my trips to Hawaii the term wikiwiki, which meant quickly, quickly. I liked that alliteration: wikiwiki Web—kind of like the worldwide Web."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1939982,00.asp [March 20, 2006]

Types of Wiki• Based upon how Wiki can be accessed

– Public Wiki

Anyone can view, create and edit content– Protected Wiki

Anyone can view but only authorised can create and edit content

– Private Wiki

Only authorised can view, create and edit content• We can have a combination of all these in a single Wiki (use

of Plugins/Extensions)

Uses of Wiki• Knowledge management of many types…

– Documenting meetings– Proposal development– Recording experiences– Developing reports– Archiving documents– Getting feedback on ideas

Basically it can be used anywhere we needcollaboration

on a document

Wiki - a knowledge management tool

• We all do knowledge management everyday It is the lifeblood of an organisation

• Wiki makes knowledge management comfortable

Some important features…

• History• Compare Revisions• Recent Changes• Discussion/Talk Page• Watch List

Feature: History• All revisions are archived every time the document is saved• Allows you to see who made changes to the document and

when• Easy to see if someone has tried to tamper with the

document

Feature: History

Feature: Compare Revisions• You can compare two revisions at a time• The changed text will be displayed in different colours

Feature: Compare Revisions

Feature: Recent Changes• Lets you see the most recent edits made to pages in the

Wiki • Gives you a rough idea of overall changes

Feature: Recent Changes

Feature: Discussion/Talk page• Used when collaborators need to discuss the document,

post queries and so on…

Feature: Discussion/Talk page

Feature: Watch List

• Anyone with an account may choose to be notified when a certain page changes using the "watch" feature and "my watchlist“.

• Is helpful if you are afraid that somebody will try to tamper with content you have created.

Wiki Syntax?

What is Syntax?

• Rules and uses of grammatical construction, e.g. order of words

• In Wiki Means how to show formatting (headings, bold,

lists and so on)

Some Wiki Syntax• Simple syntax

– Single quotes to emphasise text2 single-quotes for italics3 single-quotes for bold5 single-quotes for italics + bold

– Use = for headings– Use # and * for listing

• Wiki provides a toolbar to give quick access to useful commands

• There are many more instructions for advanced users

Short Story continues…

They start to use Wiki.

Wiki! Wiki! Job Done!

Wiki

They all worked happily ever after…

Thank you

Anjesh Tuladharmycupboard at http://anjesh.blogspot.com

If you have to, anjeshtuladhar at gmail dot com