These days, Wikis certainly represent one of the best developed forms in the ever-increasing phenomenon of user-generated content on Internet. They are used to share and access information via a Web platform.
What exactly is a Wiki?
Here is a description of Wiki provided by the most popular and world’s largest contributor of this movement, Wikipedia:
“A wiki is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (an original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.”
With a wiki, anyone is able to contribute by adding or even deleting passages, regardless of their expertise. Wikis are part of the “web 2.0 revolution” which allows more interactivity and exchange between users through different sort of Internet-based services.
Therefore, it is easy to see that this new mean for interaction and information-sharing could become very useful for all learning communities.
What is a learning community?
This definition is provided by Wikiversity, another famous Wiki except the main goal is to promote the development of such learning communities:
"A learning community is a group of people all connected by a common educational or developmental goal. It is an idea which is used in various educational settings as a way to increase motivation and ultimately to empower the learner in constructing their own meanings and methods in addressing the particular problem or issue they are currently working on. Attributes of a learning community typically include being collaborative, decentralised and distributed, much as, and for the same reasons that Communities of Practice (CoPs) are also applied, both in educational and business settings."
Why wikis can be considered as valuable tools for learning communities?
For the simple reason that the procedure involved in the creation of new entries in a wiki can be identify as a learning process. In general, the production of the contents in a wiki has to go through phases of discussion, debate and numerous conflicts before finalizing the version of the project. If you look at the Wikipedia talk page you will find some of these elements as well as suggestions the contributors have added in order to improve the article from their perspective.
The fact that Wikis are inherently collaborative structures definitely demonstrates the expression of this learning process. This is similar to teachers who assign projects to their students and tell them to discuss it and report their findings.
It is in this creation process that the expression of learning communities can be revealed.
Actually many active wikis found on Internet are potential learning communities.
This will depends on the degrees of involvement and participation of every member.
“Returning to the idea of being collaborative, decentralised and distributed; we must also add that people in a proper, functioning learning community themselves really feel that they are a part of that community and that they actually participate. We know that in some groups, some people will take over and some people will feel excluded. This is not to say that all work in a learning community has to be shared equally (some learning communities will develop hierarchical elements); but rather to ensure that each individual feels they can add anything at any time and that each individual's needs have to be recognised in order for it to be a functioning learning community.” (Wikiversity)
Many wiki communities are now private and specialized particularly within companies and the education system. These types of wiki usually required a password to be edited and the control of any changes are much more regulated. This move comes after the growth of criticism concerning vandalism in open wiki (especially within sensitive subject where legally contentious contents and inaccuracies could be found).
Most of the time, the general public still have access to the article but the manipulation is restricted to registered members. Citizendium is an example of this form of wiki. Its founder, Larry Sanger, has announced that topic experts will be nominate to run the site; they “will have final, enforceable authority to “resolve” controversy and kick out trolls” and that these topic experts “will function like village elders or college professors - they’ll simply make the wiki a civilized place.” This is supposed to propose a reliable alternative to the problem of vandalism but it is also likely to challenge the basic principle of openness intrinsic to wiki.
I think that this type of wiki can represent a good complement in the elaboration of specific communities but open wikis like Wikipedia should remain. As I previously stated, what makes wikis interesting for learning communities is the process and the fact that it is open to discussion. This permits viewers to learn about different opinions and ways of thinking. Once all opinions and points of view are examined then the user has an opportunity to delineate their own. Even incorrect remarks can lead to a deeper questioning on the subject.
I believe wikis have had a huge social impact today and represent a powerful tool for any learning communities. It allows for the breaking of boundaries, in the collaboration process and also allows anyone to participate regardless of who they are and their expertise on the subject.
The following are examples of the use of wikis in the development of learning communities:
The eCommunicate 2.0 EdNA Group (a community of teachers learning about the new Web 2.0 technologies).
Wikia (a semi-private college/university wikis), which is already used by Stanford University.
Other wiki’s about colleges and universities can also be found at students.wikia.com.
For more articles about wikis in general, you can also check my archive in Furl section wiki.