Wikis are a great tool for class or group projects where you want groups to have a central repository of all the material they have used in the projects. Wikis are the best tool for knowledge base building by groups, especially over time.

Wikis can also be used by individuals to create projects and make web sites which are much easy to make, maintain, and use than traditional highly static web pages.

Wikis being used by UPS departments

• Oberon — the Theatre Department wiki
• Proteus — an English Department wiki for English 300 classes

Both these wikis are hosted by the Instructional Technology group and run on Mediawiki, the wiki software that runs Wikipedia. It is recommended only for large, long-term projects.

Wikis for Class Group and Individual Projects

There are many wikis out there. Two that we recommend which are full featured, easy to use, and educator friendly are:

• Wikispaces- see our page on how to set it up for class. Also, you can contact us if you would like to have class training on it.
• Some people prefer to use a similar wiki called PBwiki. The UPS Politics and Government Department uses PBWiki for their wiki to share information with alumni.

Resources on Teaching with Wikis

• Some tips on how to teach wikis
• Wikipatterns on adopting and using wikis
• The S.T.O.L.E.N. Principles for planning a wiki