Getting others interested in wiki'ing.
Submitted by janellejarboe on Tue, 2007-02-27 20:00.
We have created a Wiki, but it's kind of just sitting out there. Our idea was to use it as a Frequently Asked Question(s)/Information sharing sort of thing. We really think it will be useful. However, our staff members all the only ones that have been adding to it. So in my mind it is not a "true" Wiki. Does anyone have any success stories they would like to share to get others involved?
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Three important things to do
Three important things to do to get patrons to use something:
Hi Janelle! With a wiki, it
Hi Janelle! With a wiki, it isn't necessary that lots of people add to it. In fact, some wikis are only used by a single individual and are still quite useful.
How have you marketed the wiki so far? I think a really important thing to do is to offer trainings on using wikis, because a lot of people are intimidated by them and don't feel comfortable editing them until they're in a safe environment with a knowledgeable facilitator. Having a "Sandbox" area on the wiki for people to add to is also helpful as is LOTS of documentation. Is your wiki WYSIWYG or do people have to use wiki markup? Is it really easy to start using or does someone have to e-mail someone else to get an account? Stuff like that can be barriers to people. Also, I think a wiki with a really targeted purpose works a lot better than one that is just about sharing information about anything and everything. It's also important to seed the wiki with content, because no one wants to add to a blank slate.
I wrote a post a few weeks ago on Encouraging Participation in the Wiki World. Hope you find it useful!
Wow! I got some great
Wow! I got some great feedback from this post! Great... :) As far as marketing we have mentioned it at a board meeting and also at an online information sharing meeting. Since we are a library system our "patrons" are a bit different. I believe we also sent out an email to our system list serve. I think training would be a great way to get people interested. I think people are a little scared about it and don't want to be one of the first people to add something. We started by seeding it from staff members, but even some of the staff were hesitant. I think that could be resolved with some training, too. We should be comfortable and using it a lot before we encourage others to use it. When we first started we were using wiki markup, but now we have a WYSIWYG editor. It helps.
I think the way to go would be maybe to have a wiki that would have to do with something they are REALLY interested in such as Summer Reading. We were planning on doing a blog for that (final project... :) ) But, now I am thinking of doing a blog or maybe using a wiki and a blog in conjunction kind of like we have with this course. I think it could work. Then if they get comfortable using it that way they might be more comfortable with it in another way.
Thanks for the post. That did help. I also honestly haven't had time to get to a lot of the reading done this week. Thankfully things slow down after tomorrow morning! I am sure there is lots of good info in the reading... :)
Right now we have our WIKI wide open. As far as I know we haven't had any trouble. However, I am not our site admin. I will have to talk to him about it. But, I know he is discouraged because no one has been using it. :( Hopefully we can get it more in use.
By Sandbox do you mean somewhat of a play area? And... he has been good about putting lots of documentation, but I think some people naturally would rather have training on it and use the documentation for back up. Thanks a bunch!
Hi Janelle, The wiki that we
Hi Janelle,
The wiki that we are in process of creating at work is also a frequently asked questions information sharing thing. However, before we even market the wiki we are assigning passwords to staff members who wish to add content and creating policies regarding adding content. We envision our wiki as a resource for those studying Montana history, therefore we don’t want anyone adding or taking away content. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with not getting people involved on the editing side of a wiki. I do, however, think that it is very important to get feedback from users in order to improve your wiki.
But what do you do when
But what do you do when people won't register and/or refuse to remember logins...
Karen- did your staff assign the passwords/user names? I wonder if registering for people, then keeping track of everything they would need to login is the way to get around administrative resistance?
A policy is one thing we
A policy is one thing we didn't think of! Thank you for the idea. I agree with you somewhat on the editing part of a wiki. I think in our case it wouldn't be a bad thing. The thing I worry about is the bad press wikis get sometimes, but I think some education on that will clear it up immensely. Thank you for the tips. :)