Wikis and Emerging Web 2.

0 eLearning Communities
September 6, 2007 Moderator: Matt Villano, senior contributing editor, Campus Technology

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Agenda
Introduction Wikis and Web 2.0: A primer Case study: Boston College Case study: Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley Building successful wikis: Keys and best practices Conclusion and Q&A

Presenters
Gerald C. Kane, assistant professor of Information Systems, Boston College Howard Rheingold, author and professor of communications at both Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley Jeff Brainard, director of Marketing, Socialtext

About us
Campus Technology and T.H.E. Journal are the leading IT resources for higher education and K12. Magazine Conferences
Campus Technology Winter 2007
FETC 2008

Web sites and e-newsletters

T.H.E. Institute

Our sponsor
Socialtext, www.socialtext.com
Socialtext wikis are designed for educational institutions that want to accelerate campus-wide communications, better enable knowledge sharing, foster collaboration, and build vibrant, e-learning communities for the students, faculty, staff and alumni. Today, more than 3,000 organizations use Socialtext including higher education clients such as University of Southern California, Boston College, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and Ohio University.

Wikis and Web 2.0: A Primer

Matt Villano, senior contributing editor, Campus Technology

Wiki 101
What is a wiki?
Wikis are web pages or sites where users can easily create, share and edit content. Create rich knowledge bases

Users can turn to wikis to:

Manage projects and processes more efficiently

Build dynamic intranets, extranets Form virtual communities

Changing how we work and communicate

In the past, communication was challenging:
We sent occupational spam by copying everyone. We lost valuable info in the inbox. We had difficulty finding information. We handled project status via meetings and conference calls. We were trapped by organizational silos that prevented idea flow.

Today, with wikis, things are different.

The best of both worlds

Wikis combine the benefits of traditional tools with emerging Web 2.0 technologies.
Traditional tools: Email, directories, search engines Web 2.0: RSS, blogs and tagging

Students have grown up with Web 2.0 technologies and expect to use them in college and in the workplace. Colleges and universities therefore must provide them.

The benefits of wikis

They centralize content.
Multiple users can access, edit and manage content.

They improve use of email.

They enable users to find and retrieve information quickly.

They enable users to collaborate and share information efficiently.

Most importantly, theyre just cool!

Case Study: Socialtext at Boston College

Gerald C (Jerry) Kane, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Carroll School of Management, Boston College

The skinny on Boston College

Private, co-educational Jesuit university in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Enrollment: 15,000 students (9,000 undergraduates) Carroll School of Management: 2,400 undergraduates ranked No. 14 by BusinessWeek in 2007.

Wikis used in MI021: Computers in Management

First class taken by BBA students

8 sections/semester, 50 students/section

Why wikis?
I started with Facebook.com, but class collaboration quickly outgrew it.
Why? No file attachments, rigid structure, no peer editing.

I then turned to Socialtext to enable collaboration.

Benefit of the wisdom of crowds in that under the right conditions, the crowd can be smarter than the expert. Ive also encouraged whats called crowd-sourcing, whereby students generate most of the content and assignments for the class.

I now use wiki as a mashup to combine best of many Web 2.0 tools.
Facebook/Social Networks RSS/Feed Readers Del.icio.us/Folksonomies Google Custom Search, YouTube, others.

Why Socialtext?
From my research, it was perceived to be the industry leader. It has a robust platform. Wanted students to become familiar with tool most likely to use in business. What I like about Socialtext:
It offers good balance between simplicity and control. The vendor has continued to improve the product. My interactions with the company have been extremely positive.

How I use Wikis

Wiki functionality
I can capitalize on archive to develop sections of wiki for use by later classes. I encourage peer review and evaluation of papers. I administer an Open Source final exam. I track students online involvement.

RSS feeds
I bring in a virtual newsstand: WSJ, BW, NYT, Wired, etc. I link to my blog, which is an easy way to communicate with students beyond class. I also link to Google Reader, which finds interesting articles. I Incorporate Del.icio.us to tag articles for appearance on particular sections. I monitor recent changes to wiki.

Other Web 2.0

I also incorporate Facebook, Google Custom Search, YouTube, etc.

MI021-Computers in Management

Gauging success
Course evaluations:
4.6 out of 5, but no benchmark to compare.

Wiki listed as both favorite and least favorite part of the course.
For those who listed it as least favorite, collaboration was most favorite. Lesson: Its not the tool, but processes it enables.

My workload is markedly lower.

Its easier for me to create and grade exams. Its easy to catch students up if they miss (but difficult to skip). Ive had few complaints about fairness. I can use archive to create content for future classes. How do they cheat if given all the content?

What Ive learned

Notion of If you build it, they will come is a myth. Educators must provide incentives for usage.
Carrot: Top contributors to wiki (typically by peer vote) receive bonus points. Stick: Base-level participation required.

Increased accessibility/collaboration can easily increase work level.

Educators must be prepared to surrender a certain amount of control and trust the process, or else they will be overwhelmed.

Optimizing interaction
Tools can be double-edged swords. Its not about more student-professor interaction but improving value-added, tiered interactions:

Level 3: Student-Prof

Level 2: Student - TA

Level 1: Peer-to-Peer
Source: Walsh 2007

Are wikis for you?

Ive learned that wikis work best:
In small groups (less than 150)

When theres a common language (formal and informal)

When youre dealing with non-controversial subjects In a semi-formal setting In a dynamic environment In an environment of trust and respect

Does this describe your classroom, your committee, your work team, your department?
Source: Information Week, 2005

Case Study: Socialtext at Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley

Howard Rheingold, author and professor of communications Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley

Background
Stanford: Private research institution located in Palo Alto, Calif.
Enrollment: 17,000 (6,400 undergrads)

UC Berkeley: Public research university in Berkeley, Calif.

Enrollment: 33,000 (23,000 undergrads)

Wiki used in Communication 182/282 - Virtual Community and Social Media

Department of Communication, Stanford School of Information, UC Berkeley

Why and how I use Socialtext wikis

With wikis, syllabi become living documents. The wiki establishes a collaborative space for student projects. It facilitates active note-taking during class. My wiki tags make it easy to track student and team projects. I or students can include multimedia presentations. The wikis facilitate different public and private workspaces

Building Successful Wikis: Keys and Best Practices

Jeff Brainard, director of marketing, Socialtext

What to look for in a wiki

Ease of use:
Wikis should be a place where users can create, find and edit content easily.

Integration:
Wikis should offer technology that integrates with tools such as email, RSS, instant messaging, directories and more.

Offers different ways to view information:

Wikis should offer blogs and other alternatives.
Source: Levitt, Mark. Wikis: Taking content collaboration to the next level, IDC June 2007

Socialtext wikis: Features

Collaboration. Blog publishing. Integration with email, RSS and more. Advanced search, tagging and organization. Simple file management. Personalized and customizable navigation. Access control and administration. Advanced features for flexible, remote access. Co-existence with Enterprise IT (in corporate environments).

Wikis are everywhere

In an Intranet, they Create a knowledge base. Enable group collaboration. Help manage projects, processes. In an Extranet, they facilitate Secure, shared workspaces. Extended team collaboration. Partner and supplier portals. With the Internet, they establish Public knowledge bases. Self-service portals. Social communities. Mobility.

Best practices #1: Project management

Scenario: Manage project team with members in various locations. Invite team into a private Socialtext wiki. Create People page for each member. Include roles, contact information and project links. Make a project summary page. List goals and key milestones. Link to team member pages, meeting notes, research, agendas, and attach relevant material. Project blog automatically displays work in diary format. Benefits Create central area where members can share notes, track activities and work on tasks, from any place at any time Reduce ramp-up times for new members or follow-on projects. Accelerate project cycle times by 25 percent

Knowledge Wiki
Summary view of page content RSS feeds from any page

Add attachments

One-click search Tags provide greater context

Edit page and contribute to discussion Add multimedia (images, videos, audio)

Add links to relevant content

Social Point
Search Socialtext as webpart inside Sharepoint. Support for MOSS 2003, WSS and 2007. Integrates with Active Directory for auth/SSO. Leverages Sharepoint file repository and search. Wiki contents provided in Sharepoint dashboard. Easily click to edit wiki pages or create new ones.

Edit this page

Best practice #2: Reduce email overload

Scenario: Enable better communication and team collaboration Invite team into a private Socialtext wiki. Make a new page for the draft or discussion. Members edit the draft as needed. The page displays latest version. Team members comment at the bottom of the page, discussing how to improve the draft or discussion. Benefits Single location for team contributions and updates. Relieves burden of managing mountains of email each day Provides history preserves changes and prevents accidental loss Userseven newcomerscan quickly search the page and get up to speed on the discussion.

Best practice #3: Build a dynamic Intranet

Scenario: Intranet content is stale, so users rely on email to find and send information. Encourage experts (a.k.a the people who already are answering questions) to post in the wiki. Engage others with relevant knowledge to update and improve content, as well. Build a glossary by defining common acronyms and jargon terms for all to understand. Centralized, up-to-date resource with contributions directly from users. Quickly correct mistakes and update information. Provides newcomers with a valuable resource for ramping up.

Benefits

Wiki Widgets: Advanced wiki functionality made simple

Use this feature to create rich structure to pages.

Use it to incorporate content from other wiki pages.

Use it to embed links, images and attachments.

Finally, use it to integrate external content feeds such as Google, Technorati, RSS feeds, and more.

Anytime, anywhere wikis: Miki and Socialtext Unplugged

Miki: The mobile wiki Supports Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile devices. Offers lightweight, simple mobile interface. Enables users to view recent changes, add comments and edit. Socialtext Unplugged Supports off-line access from just about any mobile device. Users can sync changes again when network is available. Certain settings provides alerts on revision conflicts

Incorporates advanced search function.

Q & A Session and Conclusion

Learn More: Socialtext and Wikis

Visit www.socialtext.com to access these and other resources:
Socialtext blog: http://www.socialtext.com/blog/. Boston college case study: http://www.socialtext.com/node/207.

Product tour: http://www.socialtext.com/products/tour.

Free 14-day trial: www.socialtext.com/trial/1. Download Socialtext Open: www.socialtext.net/open. Contact Socialtext: sales-contact@socialtext.com.

Learn More: Campus Technology 2007, Winter

Leading Change in Social Collaboration Environments
Track leader: Julian Lombardi Assistant Vice-President, Academic Services and Technology Support Duke University In this exhilarating day of discovery, attendees will get a look into the future as they work to develop a firm foothold in current and emerging social collaboration technologies for the campus. Part 1: Social Collaboration Technologies Then, Now, and Beyond Part 2: Case Studies: From the Campuses Part 3: Now Its Up to You

About This Webcast

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Thank you for attending!