Speaker: John Roberts

Title: The Wiki as a Research Tool

Summary:

"Wiki" is short for "wiki wiki", Hawaiian for "quick." You are more likely to hear the term these days applied to a type of web site which gives all users the ability to edit the content. One of the best known examples of a wiki site is wikipedia.org, the online encyclopedia with over 1 million articles all written by volunteers. Wikis have begun to replace much more expensive proprietary software solutions for documenting, managing, and encouraging collaboration.

I will discuss how a wiki might prove useful for managing our own research here at UCAIR. Who in the lab knows the answer for solving a particular problem in matlab? What is the timeline for experiments for a particular grant? Have you ever tried to make sense of a graduate student's home directories after they've graduated? Do you pass around multiple copies of grant proposals via memory sticks during the writing process? I will give an overview of the history of wiki, a discussion of the specific wiki (twiki) which is installed at UCAIR, and a demonstration of some possible applications.

Useful links:

http://wiki.org

http://www.twiki.org

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/ATasteOfTWiki