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Wiki Plan

Learning Objectives

  • The primary goal of the Wiki Plan activity is to get you started. I truly believe, "Well begun is half done."
  • A secondary goal of the Wiki Plan activity is to give your mentors something to look at so they can begin giving you advice.

Ideas about how to contribute to wikis

If you haven't edited or created a wiki page before, then you should start by skimming through this User's Guide for editing MediaWiki pages. (If you want to jump right in, this editing guide is a good style reference.)

The OSU Wiki uses MediaWiki as the back-end engine which stores and manages all its pages. MediaWiki is also the engine used to create and maintain Wikipedia. Lots of other wiki engines exist, and although they have many features in common, each engine has its own characteristics. This is much like learning to drive: most cars operate in a similar manner, and all cars are supposed to follow the same "rules of the road", but each car can have a different layout for its controls.

Ultimately the technical part of adding ideas is quite straightforward; typically you click on "Edit This Page", enter your ideas in a simple browser-based dialog box, and click "Save Page" to post the revised page in the wiki. Most people find it much harder to come up with original ideas and write them in an engaging manner. Also, you need to place your ideas in appropriate pages or page sections, and your contributions should be written to fit nicely with the wiki's overall body of ideas. I do not have simple rules or guidance for how to meet these important criteria, except to suggest looking carefully at existing wiki pages before deciding where to place your ideas in the wiki.

People can contribute to a wiki in several ways:

  • New topics can be inserted by building a new page.
    This is quite easy to do in MediaWiki: simply decide what you would like the new page to be called, and place its name inside double brackets when editing an existing page. For example, let's assume you want to create a new page named Lab Session Notes in a wiki. Simply begin editing any existing page and type [[Lab Session Notes]] into it. When you click "Save Page", the wiki will build a hyperlink in the existing page that leads to an empty Lab Session Notes page. Clicking on the hyperlink will take you automatically to an Edit Page dialog box so you can begin adding new content to the empty Lab Session Notes page.
  • New sections can be inserted into an existing page.
    Once again, this is easy to do in MediaWiki: simply place the new section's name inside two pairs of equal signs when editing an existing page. For example, let's assume you want to add a new section titled Beaver Football to an existing page. Simply begin editing the page and type ==Beaver Sports== into a new line. When you click "Save Page", the wiki will automatically create a new section named Beaver Sports in the page.
         If you want to create a minor section instead of a major section, surround its name by three equals signs, as in ===Beaver Football===.
  • Existing content can be edited or rearranged.
    This important role makes you the editor rather than the author. The simplest task would be to correct typos or other bloopers. It takes more skill to recast sentences to remove passive voice, add zest, clarify confusing passages, or otherwise spruce up someone else's writing. It can take even more skill to rearrange entire sections of a page or break an existing page into two related pages.

You may choose to add content to any publicly available wiki. As an example, if you have useful knowledge about a specific area in Eastern Oregon, then you might add content in WikiTravel. On the other hand, I want to encourage people to help build a useful OSU Wiki.

The hardest part of any creative effort is to come up with original ideas. If you run into this stumbling block, feel free to come talk with me. Often a brainstorming session will generate a variety of ways for you to proceed that match your interests. Also, do not forget to try searching the web for inspiration about a topic or examples to help flesh out a thought.

Placing your ideas in an appropriate setting

A critical part of this overall activity is to package ideas appropriately for where you will be posting them. For example, Wikipedia has a policy against publishing original research, so you  should not use it to report on the latest developments of an OSU scholar.

Before you post ideas on a wiki, you should read its policies and guidelines. This link leads to Wikipedias Policies and Guidelines page. (Note: I'm hoping a group of people will work on developing a similar Policies and Guidelines page filled with appropriate ideas for managing the OSU Wiki.)

Wikis tend to work best to capture knowledge; blogs and other on-line forums work better for editorials or other point-of-view opinion pieces. Certainly we all expect to find opinions on the editorial pages of our local newspaper. Other forums work better with factual material. For example, students buy textbooks to master more substantive topics than are found in letters to the editor. No clear line exists between an opinion piece and descriptive writing.

For this activity, I want you to make contributions to a wiki that go beyond merely expressing an opinion. Thus, if your wiki entries express opinions, then the opinions must be supported with logical reasons, facts, and examples.

OSU Wiki versus BA271 Wiki

Winter 2006 was the first time I asked students to contribute to a wiki, and I built a BA271 Wiki to hold ideas created by students in BA271. Thus, the BA271 Wiki was created as a learning tool for the Winter 2006 class. I found that more than half of the content in the wiki had nothing to do with BA271. Instead, students wrote about other OSU events and entities, such as Beaver Sports, their fraternity or sorority, other courses, and so on. So this term I decided to have the BA271 students contribute to a wiki with a broader charter, and I created the OSU Wiki.

In the long run, it doesn't make sense to have both wikis. The OSU Wiki can appropriately contain pages with content about BA271, but the reverse is not true. That is, a BA271 wiki should not contain pages about sports, student government, and so on. So I've decided to delete BA271 Wiki at the end of Spring term 2006. In the meantime, I'm hoping all content inside the BA271 Wiki that has lasting value will migrate to the new OSU Wiki. 

One editorial project that makes sense to me would be to look through the BA271 Wiki to find ideas that should be preserved and copy that content into an appropriate place within the OSU Wiki. I consider myself the copyright holder of the ideas in the BA271 Wiki, and I explicitly grant students permission to copy ideas from the BA271 Wiki into the OSU Wiki.

Requirement

To help get everyone started, I want each person to create a statement of intent about how they want to contribute to a wiki. This statement should be placed in each student’s My Talk page of the wiki. This statement of intent will not be binding; that is, you may ultimately decide to make other contributions than what is described in your statement of intent.

Here is a description of the dead minimum of what you should do for your Wiki Plan.

  • Go to the OSU Wiki.
  • Log in so you can begin editing the wiki.
  • At the very top of the page, click on the blue My Talk hyperlink.
  • Edit this page to include a new section titled: My Wiki Plan. Here is an example of how to complete this task:

Now that I've described the minimum, here are ideas about what would be better:

  •  Build some structure into your page so that it will grow in a reasonable way throughout all the Wiki Activities this term.
  • Consider beginning with a section that describes a bit about you. You might call this "About me". To make this section friendly, consider inserting a picture. This section will help your mentors understand enough about what you are interested in so that their comments will make sense given your background.
  • Next should come your "Wiki Plan" section. The more clearly you describe what you want to do, the better the feedback and comments are likely to be from your mentors.
  • Next should come your "Overview of your wiki contributions". This might also be called, "My Personal Contributions". This section will allow you to explain and sell all the nifty edits and contributions you have made to public wikis.
  • Finally, should come sections for your mentors to use.

The following example shows how I expect your MyTalk page should look:

If you would like to see this page directly (perhaps to copy some of its codes for use in your MyTalk page), then you can go to http://oregonstate.edu/webprojects/wiki/osu/index.php/User_talk:Retzlafg.

Test your work!

Make sure your description of Wiki Plan is in the proper location for grading. To do this, click on your Username in this Wiki Plan listing. If for some reason your User Talk page with its description of your Wiki Plan cannot be accessed by clicking on your link in this listing, then look carefully at where your hyperlink is supposed to go and create a page in the OSU Wiki at that location. Alternatively, if you have difficulty with any step in this process, get in touch with Dave Sullivan.

This website was created and is maintained by Dave Sullivan.
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