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U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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Using a Wiki to Facilitate Collaboration
By Melanie Popa, Biological Sciences In the upper-level microbiology laboratory courses that I teach in the Biological Sciences Department, a significant portion of each course (as well as the students’ grades) is a student-chosen independent research project. This is a small-group collaboration in which the students choose a topic to investigate, research the background and appropriate protocols, complete the experiments, collect the data, and present the entire proj For several years students worked on this project during class or by getting together outside of class. Neither option was satisfactory since meeting during class took time away from instruction and experiments, and scheduling time outside of class when all group members were available was logistically difficult. In December of 2005, I attended the CIDDE workshop on using wikis as research and teaching tools. The information and ideas I got at this workshop prompted me to explore the possibility of using wikis for online collaboration. I wanted to see if incorporating a wiki into the course would make the student-to-student teamwork easier and also improve my ability to oversee and mentor the whole independent project. A wiki is a type of Web site in which members can easily add, remove, and edit information without knowing computer programming languages. Anyone who can use the Internet and word processing programs has the skills needed to create and use a wiki. Instructional Uses While the students were working on their independent projects, I was able to check on their progress, keep track of the supplies that were needed and see the preliminary results. Of course the tool is only good if it is being used, so the importance of keeping me and the team members informed by updating their wiki page was regularly emphasized. As the course coordinator, I also used the wiki throughout the term to post links to journal articles that were pertinent to the experiments being done at the time, to post the combined experimental data from the two course sections, and to post links to microbial news of general interest. Before the class used the wiki for the special project collaborative work, they got started on wiki work by posting reviews of Pitt’s Science 2006 conference sessions that they attended. This proved to be an excellent way of sharing information and excitement about current topics in science and for gaining familiarity with using a wiki. Any class that has collaborative work, collects data, and shares information can use a wiki. They are easy to use and versatile. For greater collaboration, a wiki can be set up so that one class has a single wiki with many pages; or, for a more private setup, one class can have several wikis with a few students using each. For collaborative work, all versions of the document are automatically saved. The wiki will keep track of the changes as well as the wiki member who made the changes. The versions can be compared and, if desired, an earlier version can be recovered. Members of a collaborative group can post documents, post data, post links; thus keeping each other, and the instructor, informed of all progress, changes, and results. Choosing a Wiki The features of both the free and premium wikis vary with the provider. For example, an important consideration is privacy: Wikis can be public or private. Premium wikis generally provide control over all privacy features of your wiki. Free wikis commonly are open to the public for viewing, but password protected for editing. As a general rule, the wiki creator can set functionality so that editing privileges are only available to registered, invited members of the wiki. The wiki will track who edits a page as well as all versions of the page—information that can be viewed by the wiki members. Some features to keep in mind while comparing wikis are the membership limit, the space provided for storage and attachments, and the number of edits, pages and messages permitted. Wikis are fun, forgiving, and (can be) free. Jump in. Get started. And if you want more information, come to CIDDE’s wiki workshop April 13, 2007.
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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