A Success Story at Cal Poly Pomona

“With Word, the documents were not very searchable, and we had limited ability to share these documents at the same time. We tried to use a CMS system to create internal web pages, but it wasn’t set up to manage dynamic pages with multiple contributors at multiple times. It was unwieldy and simply not friendly for collaboration.”

This is a direct quote from a wiki user and probably has more weight than when I toot my company's horn about strengths of wikis over word and CMS systems.

I promise I didn’t make it up. Kevin Morningstar, executive director of Student Affairs Information & Technology Services (SAITS) within the Division of Student Affairs at California State Polytechnic University Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), said it.

There’s a new case study on the SAITS experiences and successes to-date with SamePage. In it, Kevin explains how, for the first few years of its operation, SAITS was charged with (and employees struggled with) finding ways to create and share effective user and technical documentation. They tried and discarded other solutions before determining a wiki was the best fit.

Kevin explains that when his team found SamePage: “We jumped on it. SamePage came pre-packaged; it was already executable to be immediately up and running,” he noted. “And we had it up and running in 24 hours with one staff member taking care of the set up.”

“I can’t imagine we could have made a better choice,” he said. Read the rest of the case study.

Wikis in Academia, Part II

I've posted before about wikis in academia. It's a very important area of potential growth for many wiki companies. At the same time, I'm sure it's a challenge for educational institutions to make investments in software; budgets everywhere are tight.

Even with upfront software-investment costs, I believe wikis are a technology that quickly earn their keep. The investment pays off in the value of the shared knowledge and collaboration.

Today, eTouch SamePage announced it has been selected by the California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech) Atwater Research Group to integrate the wiki for the group’s internal communications. The prestigious research group will use the SamePage enterprise wiki for several purposes, including project collaboration, posting manuals and procedures for lab equipment and research processes, as well as to update, comment and edit information in real time for the lab group of nearly 50 members.

“We selected SamePage because of the ease of setup, use and maintenance,” said Davis Darvish, a Caltech PhD Graduate Student and member of the Atwater Research Group. “It provides excellent features that keep our information secure and only accessible to those who are authorized. Several members of our research group have used SamePage on other projects, and we had received a number of strong recommendations about the enterprise wiki before making our final decision. Plus, it was one of the best-priced hosted full-service wikis we found.”

The members of the Atwater Research Group are obviously bright; they are engaged in interdisciplinary materials and device research, spanning photonics and electronics and with applications in Si-based photonics, plasmonics, renewable energy and mechanically active thin film devices. And so we are proud they selected SamePage among all the wiki and collaboration-software options out there.

In addition, a couple of months ago, Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles announced it was integrating SamePage product for use by the university's IT department, as well as other divisions, for collaboration, knowledge management and long-range planning within its IT department, the backbone for the university's systems. Specifically, LMU will use SamePage to collaborate on multiple campus projects, including the development of new student and faculty-oriented learning spaces in the university library. In addition, academic technology analysts will collaborate on research with faculty in various schools.

It's quite clear that the potential for wiki use within an academic institution is large and varied. And the uptick will continue as more realize its benefits.

Some Things in Life Really Are Free

I’ve written before about wikis in academia. I believe deeply in the value of wikis in this area – for administrators, professors, researchers, as well as for students.

For students, in particular, it is challenging to find the budget for new software and applications to help muddle through the process. But students can benefit so much from using technology for research, group coordination, collaboration, project planning and more.

Plus, students who use and become comfortable with business software and applications while still in school will be more prepared when they enter the workforce. I wish I had a wiki to use to manage my projects while I was in college!

That’s why, although SamePage is an enterprise wiki, I was part of the team that put together the plan to offer SamePage version 4.0 FREE to university students with an .edu email address. All students need to do is sign up at http://samepage.spwiki.com. They can include up to five users in their group. It’s simple and straightforward. The interface is user friendly and utilizes a WYSIWYG editor, so students don’t need technical expertise. In addition to the collaboration features, there are discussion forums and a blog element.

Some things in life really are free. And when this phenomenon occurs, people should reach out and grab it. That’s exactly what we hope students will do with SamePage v. 4.0.

Academic Wikis

One of the wiki industry’s foremost evangelists, Stewart Mader, is a big believer in the use of wikis in education; he wrote a book on it. More recently, Stewart was quoted in an article in Edutopia introducing educators to the wiki.

The reporter, Grace Rubenstein, opens her article with: “A simple, cheap technology with a funny name will become an even more powerful portal into creative teaching and learning this year.” She goes on to delve into the different ways that wikis can be used in an educational environment.

There are so many levels of potential use of a wiki in education. For example:

• Students can better manage their projects, assignments, both individual and with teams
• Teachers and professors can manage classes and assignments, on a daily, quarterly and annual schedule; they can easily create specific project areas for different classes.
• Teachers and professors within a department can share information, collaborate on successful techniques
• Research departments can collaborate and share research knowledge
• Cross-departmental information can be easily shared and disbursed
• Meeting minutes can be posted for teacher groups and discussions

A number of educational institutions have already determined how to best put wikis to use.

There are free, open-source wikis that are valuable tools for students and teachers. But from a big-picture perspective, a university, college, high school or any other type of school might find that a proprietary software tool allows them to benefit from a wiki while protecting their knowledge base. Teachers and administrators can add varying degrees of security to whatever areas of the wiki need it, while creating general areas in which anyone can participate.

The wiki possibilities are nearly limitless.

Take this, for example. The Edutopia reporter talked with a high school technology teacher in Georgia who has encouraged and organized student collaboration across continents, between the US classroom and Bangladesh. That is obviously a teacher who understands the value of the wiki and is ready to use new technology to benefit students. And that's the kind of inspiration we expect and hope for in our educational institutions and our teachers.