881 research outputs found

    LBWiki: A Location-Based Wiki

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    Wiki systems provide a simple interface paradigm that allow non-technical users to author collaborative on-line hypertexts. In this paper we propose to use the same simple paradigm to allow users to create content for ubiquitous information systems, and present LBWiki, a prototype location-based Wiki that allows users with a mobile device to create Wiki pages based on GPS co-ordinates. We describe the hierarchical location scheme used within LBWiki and the results of a small evaluation, in which users reacted positively to the concept, but asked for greater control over geographical regions, and highlighted the importance of accurate location technology

    Wiki Approach and Student Engagement in the Learning Process

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    Wikis are one of Web 2.0 tools that can be used in the e-learning process. This article investigates how to engage students to use wiki environment. The study is based on cognitive learning theory and engagement theory. This article evaluates how learner's activity in wiki depends on interaction with teacher. Direct observation, subject teaching, literature and wiki statistical data are used to analyse student activity in a wiki environment. The results of the research indicate that appliance of wiki in informal adult learning is low when teacher do not facilitate learning process. Moreover, the author makes some recommendations for improving learning process in wiki environment to support education for sustainable development

    The potential affordances of enterprise wikis for creating community in research networks

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    In this paper, we describe some of the affordances, (the specific enabling features or characteristics), of an enterprise wiki to meet the needs of a developing community of practice. The Social Innovation Network (SInet) is a nascent research network that spans the social sciences, education and commerce at the University of Wollongong. It will use the enterprise wiki software Confluence to assist in the development of communities of practice across its groups and subgroups. This paper, describes some of the features of the software and how it might be used to perform some of the common activities identified by Wenger (nd) as contributing to the development of community

    Document and author promotion strategies in the secure wiki model

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    Wiki systems form a subclass of the more general Open Collaborative Authoring Systems, where content is created by a user community. The ability of anyone to edit the content is, at the same time, their strength and their weakness. Anyone can write documents that improve the value of the wiki-system, but this also means that anyone can introduce errors into documents, either by accident or on purpose. A security model for wiki-style authoring systems, called the Secure Wiki Model, has previously been proposed to address this problem. This model is designed to prevent corruption of good quality documents, by limiting updates, to such documents, to users who have demonstrated their ability to produce documents of similar or better quality. While this security model prevents all user from editing all documents, it does respect the wiki philosophy by allowing any author who has produced documents of a certain quality to edit all other documents of similar or poorer quality. Moreover, authors who consistently produce top quality documents will eventually be allowed to edit all documents in the wiki. Collaborative filtering is used to evaluate the quality of documents that an author has contributed to the system, thus determining what other documents that the author can edit. This collaborative filtering mechanism, determines the promotion and demotion of documents and authors in the Secure Wiki Model. The original Secure Wiki Model only considers explicit promotion and demotion of documents, authors are implicitly promoted/demoted depending on the promotion/demotion of the documents that they contribute. In this paper, we revisit the question of promotion of documents and authors and propose a new security policy with explicit promotion of authors. This policy also incorporates a new collaborative filtering mechanism with a higher degree of parametrisation, so that the new policy can be adapted to the specific needs of a particular wiki. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

    Visualizing wiki author contributions in higher education

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    This thesis investigates how users contribute to wiki environments implemented in higher education settings. The type, extent and quality of users' edits is assessed by analyzing a student-generated wiki through a manual analysis carried by three raters. This project aims to present the relative contribution of wiki users as a way to motivate them to collaborate in a wiki-based group project. Manual as well as automatic programs are used to analyze the same set of wiki articles. Automatic algorithms are proposed to estimate users' relative contribution and ownership to the article. Suggested is the implementation of a visual representation known as a glyph (working as an add-on to the wiki) that shows statistics on participants’ contributions. Several glyph designs were tested by participants through interviews. These interviews showed that participants identified the visualization as a motivation enhancer to contribute to wikis

    Measuring Wikipedia

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    Wikipedia, an international project that uses Wiki software to collaboratively create an encyclopaedia, is becoming more and more popular. Everyone can directly edit articles and every edit is recorded. The version history of all articles is freely available and allows a multitude of examinations. This paper gives an overview on Wikipedia research. Wikipedia’s fundamental components, i.e. articles, authors, edits, and links, as well as content and quality are analysed. Possibilities of research are explored including examples and first results. Several characteristics that are found in Wikipedia, such as exponential growth and scale-free networks are already known in other context. However the Wiki architecture also possesses some intrinsic specialities. General trends are measured that are typical for all Wikipedias but vary between languages in detail

    Weerkat: An extensible semantic Wiki

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    Wikis are Web applications that blur the boundaries between readers and authors, allowing non-technical people to author hypertexts through a web interface. A Semantic Wiki is a Wiki that attempts the same thing with the Semantic Web, allowing non-technical users to create semantic resources and/or ontologies. In this paper we characterise the different ways in which a Wiki might support the Semantic Web and present Weerkat, a modular and extensible Wiki that has ontological hypertext support. Key to this has been the design and development of a highly flexible Wiki architecture which allows easy modification and augmentation of functionality

    Author Support for Wiki Based Help Systems: Genre Conventions for Content Templates

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    Author support systems are critical in wiki help systems. I provide a critical review of existing research on author support systems, content strategy, content management, and how these intersect, as well as a structural content analysis of five content templates in an effort to define genre conventions

    Wikis supporting authentic, collaborative activities: lessons in usability

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    The Open University delivers distance learning to its students. Traditionally, its students work independently of each other. Looking to enhance their students learning, two postgraduate courses have introduced authentic, collaborative activities. This is easier to achieve now because of the availability of wikis: a lightweight, web-based collaborative authoring environment. This paper examines the effect of the wikis’ functionality on the students’ use of the tool, and the consequences for the students’ engagement with the activities and learning opportunities. This is a relatively large scale study involving 56 wikis produced by over 250 students. The data was drawn from the two courses using a variety of methods. A qualitative inductive analysis was used to look for emergent themes. These were validated by cross referencing, to match recorded comments with wiki content. We found that the limited functionality of wikis influenced how students engaged with the collaborative activities. While all groups were able to collaboratively author the documents required for assessment, they were not always produced in the way intended by the course teams. This meant the expected benefits of collaborative learning were not always realised. This paper will be of interest to academics aspiring to employ wikis on their courses and to practitioners who wish to realise the potential of wikis in facilitating information sharing and fostering collaboration within teams

    Wiki Technology: Promoting Academic Success in the Science Classroom

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    Author\u27s abstract: The Georgia Gwinnett College campus wiki site has progressed from a tool to accompany the traditional educational platform to a site utilized by multiple faculty and students to generate a collaborative learning environment. Biology faculty’s utilization of the wiki varies classroom to classroom, including solving case studies or problems, completing group research projects, and student development of chapter reviews and exam study guides. In all three applications of the wiki, students consistently rank the wiki in the top three course resources that are useful to help achieve academic success, surpassing the course textbook. It ranks as the number one course resource in classrooms using the wiki to develop reviews and exam study guides. Additional data results from the student survey will show the comparison of the student’s experiences in wiki and non-wiki classrooms, as well as the effectiveness of the wiki in various aspects of student learning
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