Hi Diane, I've been using wikis as part of various grant projects for the last several years and can say that they have been an invaluable tool, especially for collaborative projects with people distributed all over the place. In 2006 we setup a wiki for the MCN Board that has also been important for improving board communications.
As these have all been for shared work among professional colleagues, i haven't experienced any turf wars or malicious editing, however a shared wiki we have here has been regularly ravaged by spambots. If you are considering something that will be public, also consider something that has good defenses and make regular backups. Mediawiki is easy to setup and install for general wiki functions, but its group and user management is a little cumbersome. I have a preference for the Confluence wikis that several partners are using, especially since much of the user management can be done through a web interface - particularly if you want to distribute permissions control to lower-level users. Granted you can do all of this in Mediawiki as well, but for me, Confluence has a better fit for the kind of work we are doing. Mediawiki is free and open-source, Confluence offers a free community license for non-profits (http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/pricing.jsp#nonprofit ). Richard Urban, Doctoral Student Graduate School of Library & Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign rjurban at uiuc.edu http://isrl.uiuc.edu/~rjurban On Mar 18, 2008, at 9:33 PM, Diane Andolsek wrote: > Hello, > > Would those of you who have implemented a wiki at your institution > be so > kind as to share your findings? I am doing a little research > project for a > client and I am interested to know: > - Was it successful in terms of participation? Did people contribute > regularly? > - Have there been any issues with participant behavior? Any turf wars? > - Has anyone implemented a wiki and then taken it down and, if so, > why? > - What wiki tools are people using? > > Thanks so much! > > Diane > > WEATHERHEAD Experience Design Group, Inc. > > Diane Andolsek | Principal > 3220 1st. Ave. S Ste. #303 > Seattle, WA 98134 > P: (206) 447-0851 | F: (206) 447-0854 > > http://www.weatherhead-design.com > > Educational Experiences, Sophisticated Technology > > > > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum > Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
