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

Before you can make positive contributions to a wiki, you need to understand what a wiki is and how to edit and build wiki pages. You might start this process by reading this definition of a wiki that is contained in Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

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 BA271 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 Football== into a new line. When you click "Save Page", the wiki will automatically create a new section named Beaver Football in the page.
• 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 --and so far, relatively few people have taken on this challenge in the BA271 Wiki..

You may choose to add content to any publicly available wiki. Thus, if you have useful knowledge about specific travel destinations, then you might add content in WikiTravel. (Actually, it might be nice if people added better content for Corvallis and western Oregon in this evolving travel guide.) On the other hand, I want to encourage people to consider doing some original research about what wikis are and how they might be used. For this reason, I'd like you to read through this list of research questions. This sort of research should be added to new pages within the BA271 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.

"Point of View" versus Descriptive Writing

Some forums are appropriate 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, I do not mind if you suggest a wiki might be used in a given application -- or that wikis seem of little use to you -- as long as your opinions are supported with logical reasons or examples of success of failure. Do your best to provide facts, examples, reasons, and supporting evidence.

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 mytalk 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 how I recommend completing this requirement. Begin by going to the BA271 Wiki. Log in so you can begin editing the wiki. At the very top of the page, click on the blue mytalk hyperlink. Edit this page to include a new section titled: My Wiki Plan. Here is an example of how to complete this task:

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 BA271 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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