User:WikiPM440

WikiPM440 - DePaul University PM440 Students
This user name is for a group of students at DePaul University in Chicago who are enrolled in a class called Virtual Collaboration and are working on a project involving wikis.

Team WIKI Fall 2009

The following will be submitted for consideration.

Uses for Wikis
In the broadest sense, there are three main uses for wikis, to collaborate, to organize information, and to share that information. All wikis provide the same essential functions, which are to provide anyone the ability to view and edit the site’s content from anywhere at any time. Depending upon their particular needs a person or group can choose between establishing an internal wiki or one that is open to the public. Each type has its own degree of openness to the public, a unique atmosphere, and recognizable properties and features that make one type more suitable than the other. A wiki is one of the major types of Web 2.0 tools that facilitate virtual collaboration.

Enterprises Uses
Enterprise wikis are full featured systems that are most commonly installed on an enterprise network and secured to restrict access from the general public or control interdepartmental access. There are also several hosting services that can offer the same level of security. In some cases a wiki site installed, or a small portion of it could be opened to the internet for collaboration with business partners but generally speaking, such wikis are intended for internal use only. For internal collaboration and communication within an organization, setting up an Internal Wiki offers many advantages. It provides a unique environment for synthesis of ideas and thoughts among the employees. It can also serve as a company intranet and/or compliment other tools for providing general access to departmental and corporate information. Individual teams within an enterprise can use the wiki for developing and managing team documents. Some of the typical uses for enterprise wikis are as follows: • To collaborate on developing content or documents such as reports, white papers, documentation, or even books • To maintain a knowledge base for information and documentation such as policies, procedures, guidelines, operations manuals, checklists, corporate dictionary • To provide current information such as general announcements and notification on upcoming events • To use as an alternative to email for enabling consolidated discussion threads and building group knowledge on specific topics • To publishing reports (internally or externally) • To publicly post product and service documentation, user guides, tips, and FAQs

In some cases a wiki can compliment other collaboration tools. For example, wikis are commonly used as a virtual workspace for managing projects. Having a central repository for project documents such as project charters, schedules, and requirements enables team members to share and manage document versions more effectively than with tools such as email and file shares. Some wiki products offer integrated tools to assist with project tasks such as managing team assignments. Conversely, some project management suites have an integrated wiki component.

Having a central virtual workspace enhances communication and collaboration between team members and project stakeholders. Members can discuss topics, provide suggestions, give advice and brainstorm ideas with each other in non complicated ways. A wiki provides a platform for generating and leverage knowledge through allowing everyone to participate and contribute. This increases each member's awareness and understanding and can contribute to increased engagement.

Personal Uses
Personal wikis provide a simple function that is pretty much explained by its name, it’s intended for personal use. A Personal wiki allows a single user to create his/her own personal collection of pages and edit them whenever s/he needs to. Instead of having scattered files on personal computers and paper files, posting the information in a wiki makes it much easier to find your files. This can be accomplished by using a personal wiki tool. It’s up to the user to turn the personal wiki into the private settings if, for example, it contains sensitive or confidential information that the user prefer not to share with the outside world on the internet. This means that only the user and people s/he specifies are able to view the wiki pages. Personal wikis can be used as a note taking tool or to store and organize things such as documents, lists, tables and further link them to one another in a manner similar to the public wikis.

The following some categories of personal information that might be useful to organize with a wiki. •	To-do lists •	Contact information •	Appointments •	Various types of lists, notes, codes •	Attached documents •	Personal Goals

A personal wiki can act as a mirror that reflects the knowledge an individual possesses as the user can fill it up with information that matters to him/her. Students, writers and authors can use personal wikis to develop, maintain, and reorganize their material. Scattered ideas grabbed from here and there about topics they are interested in can all be organized and accessible in one location.

Educational Use
Wikis provide an easy way for students and teachers to collaborate virtually. Students, for instance, can share their knowledge, exchange their thoughts, and be engaged in on-going discussions. As described above, students can use wikis to manage their projects by posting assignments and tracking their progress—all the while learning to communicate virtually. By using wikis to brainstorm ideas and get feedback from their peers (e.g., regarding their papers), students enhance their learning methods and broaden their horizons. Wikis can help teachers communicate effectively with students by posting materials on-line which makes them available anytime. For example, this could include assignments, course syllabus, study guides, discussion topics, and FAQs. Teachers can also use wikis to collaborate with other teachers for such things as sharing their experiences, discuss new techniques, or finding better ways to explain concepts. Moreover, teachers can use wikis to keep students' parents up to date with their children’s assignments and class progress. They can also choose to solicit feedback from parents through the wiki. This improves teacher/parent communication which in turn improves children’s education.

Special Interest and Community Use
Special interest groups can use wikis to build communities of users that have the same interest and facilitate collaboration within the group or with anyone in the world. Wikis can help such communities share ideas, information, and knowledge with each other whether it be knowledge about a hobby or information about events that occur all over the world. It is common for groups to get started using one of the many free hosting services that are available such as Wet Paint, Wiki Host, Wiki Spaces. These sites allow first time users and small community groups to gain experience with using wikis and then allow the groups to purchase more robust services as the community grows and/or needs change.

Such wiki sites often include many different user-friendly features. For example, Wetpaint lets you build a rich, online community around the whatever-it-is that you’re really into. While building a community of users with similar interest, wikis also enable the construction of large databases of knowledge that can be accessed by the open public at any given time without any limitations. Many services offer rich features such as uploading videos or audio, unlimited usage, robust visual editors and phone support.

Wiki databases currently offer a wide variety of knowledge. Giving users the ability to provide feedback or even directly modify the content is how many new ideas are created.