Student Collaboration

Using a wiki at NTU

The university does not currently have use of wiki technology for learning and teaching, though this may change with the project for the VLP replacement. Instead there are several commercial organisations offering wiki hosting. PBwiki is a commercial service offering wiki technology & hosting that is supported within the college of Arts, Humanities & Education, because it offers the best combination of features for zero cost. Below you'll find a table showing several of the choices for wiki creation and hosting if you wish to explore other options.

Wiki Space Hosting

Wiki	URL	Online Hosting	Private (usable with Groups)	Full Wiki technology	User Interface/ Customisable	Free (extra functionality costs)
Wetpaint	http://www.wetpaint.com/	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
WikiSpaces	http://www.wikispaces.com/	Yes	No	Yes	Limited	Yes
TWiki	http://twiki.org/	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PBWiki	http://pbwiki.com/	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ELGG	http://elggspaces.com/	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
SeedWiki	http://www.seedwiki.com/	Yes	Yes	Yes	Limited	Yes

PBwiki (http://www.pbwiki.com) appears to be the easiest way to get a wiki for your class or for yourself. For example, if you need a class web page, you could create it in PBwiki in about half a minute and add a link to it from the VLP moments later. Below you'll find the pros and cons of using PBwiki within NTU.

Pros

Cons

Collaborative working

People can work when it is convenient to them - flexible

Version control

Permission control

Tracking contributions

Simple to use and Intuitive

Email when someone has contributed

Very easy to customise - delivers a more personal front end

Simple to layout information

Simple to upload files, edit, delete, etc

Attach documents

External to VLP

Not managed by NTU or linked to VLP

Students & groups have to be created & managed manually

Not owned by NTU - terms, conditions & access could change

Students cannot contribute to the same page at the same time

Environment/application dissimilar to VLP or MS office application

Anonymous posting if not careful

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