Discussion Group A4: "Beyond the Institution"
Discussion group A4 has the theme "
Beyond the Institution".
Suggested topics for discussion:
- What types of links and relationships with external bodies would benefit from use of a Wiki?
- What other key user groups outside of the institution may have an interest in Wikis?
- How would these external groups benefit from the provision of Wikis?
- What requirements do these groups have?
- What conflicts may there be between the needs of these external groups of users (and with the needs of the institution)?
- What other key issues need to be addressed related to the needs you have identified?
Report
Add a report on the discussion group below:
Discussed setups at own organisations:
Issues - sign on, single sign on, shibboleth, LDAP, who do you give access to? University of Cambridge currently can't let external people in. Wiki farms
University of Bath are willing to share their managed wikil service - the model. Would this be appropriate for every institution?
Can we benefit from using external services - maybe by a JISC managed environment or Google?
Then the issue of external users goes away because we are all external users.
Issues if IT Service are difficult!
:-)
All to do with community - context of community.
What service you are providing in the first place. Pan institutional is different from extra institutional.
Some people are resistent to using wikis. Clear from start who will and won't use the wiki.
Collaborating - not everyone will contribute but this is ian't always an issue.
Authenitication is easy
- What types of links and relationships with external bodies would benefit from use of a Wiki?
Lots of cross intitution collaboration, cross country collaboration accross (for example Chemistry) different institutional departments. Very useful for writing documents - is it the right format - versioning issues. UOC use sakai - not so Web based. Shared space - set of people sign up for a space and work together - benefits over a wiki. Elements of trust. Access to other things - wiki would need to put in links. This is more personalised and desktop and not so html based like a wiki. Coul crow bar this functionality into a wiki but with difficulty. More working towards a finished document - wiki is not so organic. Better to lock it on a wiki - rather than versioning. No overview of everything. No easy way to see a picture. This is metadata, categories etc.
- What other key user groups outside of the institution may have an interest in Wikis?
Subject departments in other Unis, students union, communities of practice.
- How would these external groups benefit from the provision of Wikis?
- What requirements do these groups have?
- What other key issues need to be addressed related to the needs you have identified?
Wikis lack the heirarchy - v.flat heirarchy - links go everywhere. Formalisation of this would be good. Solution in Bath does support hierarchy.
Worry that by adding by heirarchy etc. that we take away the very essence of wikis. Will all technologies blur over time - just fitting it for whatever suits you. Or will technologies become more specific over time? Can't prescribe what wikis are for just observe patterns of usage.
Communities of practice - observing how communities work. Who do communities have as a champion? Whose role is this within your intitution (who is reponsible for the Wikipedia site). Empowering students - getting them to write stuff on their university - can't write marketing hype (citing data).
Exploiting The Potential Of Wikis