A few people have already mentioned wiki, a content management system which allows all users of a given site to create or edit all content – to write collaboratively, in other words. The implications of this for teachers interested in collaborative writing have been explored in a number of fora. (Take a look at this discussion of wiki in composition classes from Kairos or Collaborate!, Stanford’s collaborative writing site.)
Wikipedia, an open source encyclopedia is probably the best known example of wiki in action. When I first learned about Wikipedia, I browsed the site for a bit and decided to give a shot to contributing to it. When I came across an article which referenced the famous song, “Fly Me to the Moon,” which did not yet have an article of its own, I figured I’d write one. I did a little Google-powered research and this is what I wrote:
Popular jazz standard written in 1954 by Bart Howard and made famous ten years later by Frank Sinatra. Originally entitled “In Other Words,” “Fly Me to the Moon” is frequently identified with Sinatra although it has also been performed by Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Johnny Mathis, Wes Montgomery, Diana Krall, Al Hirt, Groove Armada, Bobby Darin, Doris Day, Paul Anka, Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett and many others.
My article included the links you see above plus the lyrics as well as my name and the time I created the article. Within 5 minutes, this was posted on my “Talk” page by someone named RickK:
Hi, welcome to Wikipedia! Enjoy your stay! I had to make some changes to your Fly Me To The Moon posting. We use standard capitalization here, we don’t sign our articles, and we can’t post lyrics — they’re copyrighted.
How dare he fault me on my capitalization?! — Since then, that article has undergone a number of significant revisions by a whole host of people and now looks like this. You can look at the history of the article and compare versions here.
This brings me to my point. A number of people I know are skeptical of Wikipedia because they don’t trust a source of knowledge whose content can be modified by anybody at any time — something about it just doesn’t seem right. What’s fascinating to me about wiki, though, is that it enables all users to discuss what sort of changes should or should not be made to a given article. (RickK didn’t do a whole lot of discussing before he changed my post, I’m sure, but he did offer a rationale.)
Wikipedia, then, works the way it does because it enables a large community of dedicated folks to keep a pretty close eye on what people contribute. The site, in other words, has a built-in and more or less democratic system which regulates what is or is not included in a given article. (Note, though, that this doesn’t always turn out for the best – if you look at RickK’s Talk page, you’ll see that collective knowledge making has its discontents.) All changes are tracked by the software so that anyone can see any previous version of any article. Some articles undergo hundreds and hundreds of revisions both major and minor – take a look, for example at the history of the article on Helsinki, Finland. (I’ve never been to Finland, but would love to go.)
Interesting stuff. It seems to me that wiki could be a tremendous tool for writing instruction especially in addressing revision. The question is whether it is useful in the right way. Does it, for example, help us address concerns regarding style and correctness that many folks seem to prioritize above all else in writing? If not, should we really care? That’s another matter though.
You offer a nice overview of one of the most powerful and imposing instantiations of Web 2.0 in recent years: powerful because it is constantly defining and redefining meaning collectively, and imposing because it completely alters the way we undetstand the individual’s contribution as somehow sacrosanct. Oftentimes on a wiki one’s contribution is not a testament to his/her flare, style, or beliefs - but a lexical stone within the edifice of a monstrous database of collective knowledge. Such a departure from an insistence upon the individual product offers a true departure from the space of the “published author” as an expert and helps redefine communal values, meanings, and disagreements.
Nonetheless, this notion of “authorial authority” is possibly the biggest hurdle when coming to a wiki for the first time. In fact, this omen often creates a self-regulating logic wherein people limit themselves to posting about topics that they are somewhat fluent in. So while the theoretical logic of the wiki as an open-ended social database of knwoledge remains in tact, the fact is that the wiki does, indeed, have a built in regulator made of the various communities surrounding certain post topics.
Herein lies the rub, this community remians relatively anonymous suggesting a (re)production of knowledge that remains outside of an institutional logic of giving credit, referencing, and documenting. This fact often makes academics wary - for they often depend for their subsistence on “original” research that can be translated into an authored book with a seal of approval from the intellectual property lawyers representing their publishing firm (can anyone say tenure?). Now, with the shift to a predominantly communal definition of knwoeldge that characterizes a wiki - the criteria for credit, evaluation, critique, and assessment must also shift.
Given all this, how do we effectively integrate the wiki into the individualistic academic environment that we teach within? And, if we can, what concessions to the truly collaborative logic of the wiki are we forced to make? Finally, how do we, as educators, scholars, students, and dilletantes - begin to rethink the nature of assessment with the rise of such potentially powerful technological teaching tools?
We have some nice synchronicity going here in the WAC community at CUNY. This blog and this wiki posting come at the same time as we are testing out a wiki for the Writing Fellows program.
It’s at http://cunywf.schtuff.com.
It is only a week old at this point, but we imagine having a sort of Wikipedia of our own for WAC (and CAC) at CUNY; it would be a community-edited archive/encyclopedia of the work we do. It has similar features to Wikipedia (history and tracking of changes, etc.). Currently we have a dozen or so example handouts and assignments on there. We will be getting more, but Mikhail’s discussion of Wikipedia has made me excited about the potential for collaborative writing.
For example, when I added a document about this blog I created a link on the wiki for CAC. There is no actual page for CAC at the moment though. Someone could drop in a one or two sentence entry for it, but, like Mikhail’s entry on “Fly Me to the Moon,” it could be built up over time with corrections additions and links. It would take a while but that could happen. The main challenge would be building a community around the site.
In general collaborative online writing needs a community of some kind. This applies also (or maybe especially) to teaching. Examples I’ve seen of successful on-line writing or bulletin boards in teaching have always been successful because the class became a community that was drawn together by the topic.
Mikhail and Jim, these are great questions.
Sean–I am excited about the CUNY Writing Fellows’ Wiki.
Sean is right about community. In the case of Wikipedia, it’s a very loose community: they don’t know each other, and random folks can come along at any time and do anything. But amazingly, other people often come back and set things right, and improve them, even.
A great audio-visual example of this is provided by Jon Udell’s screencast of the Wikipedia entry for “Heavy Metal Umlaut.” I did not link it there, because when you click the link, it starts playing, and you’ll stop reading this! If you have a fast internet connection (on campus or broadband / DSL), click here when you’re ready to view Jon Udell’s screencast. The screencast is an eight-minute web-based movie (it shows right on the webpage, requiring no movie-playing applications) which details the rise and fall and rise of one Wikipedia entry (about those random umlauts used in heavy metal band names and song titles). You see how an entry develops, is vandalized, and eventually, becomes a piece of writing an awful lot of people had something to do with. It’s fun to watch and also serves as a good introduction to Wikis for those who are just thinking about what this kind of writing and editing process means.
For smaller, tighter-knit communities writing Wikis, we can expect things to run a lot more smoothly. I think Wikis provide an exciting space for teachers to experiment with certain kinds of collaborative writing.
How would I go about starting a wiki for my students to use in collaborative writing?
This guide to starting a wiki will tell you what you need to know. It has a useful section on wiki hosting and lists a good number of free and paid wiki hosts.
Your school might also be willing to host a wiki — I’d check with them. You might be able to get them to install wiki software on their servers for your class. If that’s the case, then Mediawiki is the way to go — that’s the wiki engine that runs Wikipedia and it’s free. Your private hosting service, Squarespace, might also let you install a wiki as part of your hosting package. Once you get the software hosted and running, you’d start an article and let your students at it. Simple as that.
Other suggestions folks?
I looked at the guide Mikhail mentions. Of the free servers it refers readers to, I know some teachers who use Wikicities, which offers free hosting via the Mediawiki engine, but is a public space. Schtuff also looks like it might be good, if you wanted your students to work in a Wiki where you could control who writes and edits. It’s also free. Running your own on your own server is always good if you can manage it.
Mikhail and Kate; thanks.
Jim
Personally, I have no idea why people would not understand how to do this.
Wikipedia is the key to most success online, when it comes to collabritive content adding. I have spent many hours writing articles for Jimmy Wales and am very happy with this project. I am based in Seminole FL close to the wikipedia offices in St Petersburg. I love contributing!
Happy New Year Bloggers!