The York Wiki

The York Wiki service (http://wiki.york.ac.uk), like other wikis, is a collection of editable web pages that is built up over time by a team of people. Any member of staff can create wiki spaces for themselves or their groups.

What is the Wiki for?

A wiki space can be used to hold any information you would like to share with the rest of the university or just your team. For example:

The wiki includes powerful online page editing and management features for authors and space owners. It already includes a “Project template” and will contain more page templates for commonly used university activities. Using simple wiki tags you can also add richer content to your pages, such as audio and video, category listings, tag clouds or to-do lists and even custom functionality. These features help provide an information environment that can be quickly adapted to work the way you want, to match your needs and processes.

In time, the wiki will become the best place to find and signpost relevant information in other systems such as legacy intranets or file stores.

How does the Wiki relate to Google Docs and Sites? 

Wikis lend themselves to creating searchable and freely navigable networks of information in wiki pages that together are useful but which are never complete. These pages can be continuously improved and synthesised over time by a group of authors, and can be connected to other spaces and pages on the wiki. As the creator of hypertext Ted Nelson would say, the information in wikis is intertwingly.

By contrast Google Docs are best suited to creating and sharing traditionally formatted documents and spreadsheets, with excellent support for real-time drafting and commenting by a group of authors. Documents like these are often written as narratives, with an introduction and a conclusion, and may be published once or continuously updated as "living" documents and spreadsheets. Either way they are relatively self-contained and loosely linked through formal referencing or through their positions in shared hierarchical “collections” which act similarly to shared folders in networked filestore.

Google Sites also allow creation of connected editable web pages much like wiki spaces, and are cross searchable along with Google Docs. Sites are currently a better approach when collaboratively building a set of web pages with those outside the university, or to quickly build a web site that is externally visible and relatively self-contained.

Unlike Google Docs and Sites, which are stored “in the cloud”, the wiki is hosted in York and so is the recommended platform for storing sensitive information.

Are there any restrictions?

Any member of staff can create spaces on the wiki for themselves or their groups. Students with a specific interest in using a wiki space should contact IT Support Office.

Is there any help available?

IT Services can offer support in using the wiki - please email itsupport@york.ac.uk