Wikis and education
Encyclopedia
Wikis and education often go together. Many publicly-available wikis, such as Wikiversity
, allow for self-education. Wikis are also sometimes used in classrooms for collaborative projects. Some teachers have found, however, that learners prefer to add their own content rather than rewrite others' work, perhaps because of an institutionally-cultivated norm of individual ownership. Some students also express shyness about exposing their work to be viewed by others. Such transparency seems to reduce plagiarism
.
There is also capability, with wiki software
such as MediaWiki
, to review all the edits made by any particular user. In this way, if an edit made by a user is identified as problematic, it is possible to check that user's other edits for issues. This feature is also useful for teachers of classes in which grades for group projects are determined by the contributions of individual students to a wiki. One teacher notes, "Since all the work is done on the wiki, the teacher can see everything that is and is not being done. That makes early intervention possible whenever it is necessary." Another educator who had students use MediaWiki writes:
Wikiversity
Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than...
, allow for self-education. Wikis are also sometimes used in classrooms for collaborative projects. Some teachers have found, however, that learners prefer to add their own content rather than rewrite others' work, perhaps because of an institutionally-cultivated norm of individual ownership. Some students also express shyness about exposing their work to be viewed by others. Such transparency seems to reduce plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
.
There is also capability, with wiki software
Wiki software
Wiki software is collaborative software that runs a wiki, i.e., a website that allows users to create and collaboratively edit web pages via a web browser. A wiki system is usually a web application that runs on one or more web servers...
such as MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
, to review all the edits made by any particular user. In this way, if an edit made by a user is identified as problematic, it is possible to check that user's other edits for issues. This feature is also useful for teachers of classes in which grades for group projects are determined by the contributions of individual students to a wiki. One teacher notes, "Since all the work is done on the wiki, the teacher can see everything that is and is not being done. That makes early intervention possible whenever it is necessary." Another educator who had students use MediaWiki writes: