Over the course of the past year, Online Learning has hosted a pilot wiki for faculty members to use in their courses. This winter quarter, there are 13 courses and seven departments, student clubs and staff using the Online Learning wiki. This activity will continue through the rest of the academic year.

After strong faculty interest in a campus-supported wiki, Online Learning launched a wiki — a collection of web pages designed to allow users to contribute and modify content — for RIT faculty. It is used in several courses and will expand in spring quarter.

Some useful features of a wiki include the ability to collaborate easily with a group on a single document, track student projects, invite colleagues and students from outside of RIT, and to experience an environment that students might see in corporate America, as wikis are often used in company intranets.

Examples of its use include student collaboration on documents, grading documents directly in the wiki instead of downloading attachments and uploading graded papers, exploring new topics to build a knowledge base in disciplines that aren't covered well in textbooks, and coordinating student project teams.

After looking at several different wiki products, and piloting Socialtext and Confluence wikis, the department settled on the Confluence platform, which allows for LDAP integration, has an active user community, and provides the ability to incorporate several other features and plugins.

Online Learning will host a faculty webinar on the Confluence wiki from 10-11 am on Feb. 13 and will produce additional documentation on the wiki during the remainder of winter quarter. For more information go to the Training & Events page for a listing of upcoming webinars.

Faculty interested in using Online Learning's Confluence wiki please submit a faculty request form.

For additional information or questions please contact Jessica Hooper.

Confluence Wiki's Dashboard