TnT Articles

From AgriLife WIki

D R A F T

Wiki, Wiki. Get your Wiki here!

Do you recognize these situations?

1. You are part of a team of people working on a document. Someone creates a draft, sends it out to the rest of the team asking for input, and a single individual is expected to incorporate all recommended changes, resolving any differences in those changes.
2. You have some information you want to make quickly available on the Web, but you do not have access to a website to post the information, nor do you have the tools to create the appropriate html page.
3. You are facilitating a group process in which you are trying to solicit ideas or inputs as you might do with index cards or on flip charts in a face-to-face meeting, but are trying to do it at a distance.

If any of these are familiar to you, then you may be a prime candidate for the world of the wiki. The term “wiki” is not an acronym; it is based on a Hawaiian term meaning "quick," "fast," or "to hasten." However, as it has evolved over the past ten years in the information technology world, a wiki is “a group of Web pages that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also permits others (often completely unrestricted) to edit the content” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki).

We are pleased to announce that the Texas Cooperative Extension Wiki is now open and ready for business at http://tcewiki.tamu.edu. Just let us know if you would like to “play” with this wiki technology, or even to give it a serious try. When you get to this web site, follow the link on the left to the Community Portal, the primary gateway to the various wiki communities we will host on this site. You will find there a link to the Sand Box, where you are free to change, delete, or add any content you find. Don’t worry about deleting things; all versions of any page in a wiki can be resurrected at any time.

Finally, although adding and editing content in a wiki is not too difficult to learn, once we get enough interest in using this tool, we will schedule some Centra Symposium training sessions. Jump on in, give it a try, the water’s fine.