Use of wikis in graduate course work.Graduate education in an online environment frequently means relying on a course management system (CMS (1) See content management system and color management system. (2) (Conversational Monitor System) Software that provides interactive communications for IBM's VM operating system. ) but also calls for additional interactive components. Courses in an online Master's in Family Studies incorporated wikis See wiki. (Hawaiian word for "quick") to support collaboration among students. Online collaboration can replicate the expected cooperative learning cooperative learning Education theory A student-centered teaching strategy in which heterogeneous groups of students work to achieve a common academic goal–eg, completing a case study or a evaluating a QC problem. See Problem-based learning, Socratic method. among graduate students in on-campus settings. To accomplish this, wiki A Web site that can be quickly edited by its visitors with simple formatting rules. Developed by Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s to provide collaborative discussions, there are several "wiki" tools on the market for creating such sites, including www.editme.com, www.seedwiki.com, www. technology was utilized for collaborative webpages. ********** Graduate education in an online environment frequently means relying on a course management system (CMS) or learning management system (LMS) such as Blackboard. For an online Master's degree master's degree n. An academic degree conferred by a college or university upon those who complete at least one year of prescribed study beyond the bachelor's degree. Noun 1. program at Texas Woman's University Texas Woman's University, main campus at Denton; state supported; primarily for women; est. 1901. It is the largest state-supported university for women in the country. (TWU TWU Texas Woman's University TWU Transport Workers Union TWU Trinity Western University TWU Two Worlds United TWU Texas Wesleyan University TWU Transport Workers Union of America TWU Telecommunications Workers Union ), Blackboard serves as the primary course delivery system for 11 100% online courses. The user-friendly CMS allows faculty and students to attend to course activity without a steep learning curve for handling the technology. However, the online courses call for additional interactive components either not available in the CMS or in a preferred format not supported by the CMS. To meet these needs, web-based interactive activities can be supported by University technical staff or by faculty using free or low-cost services outside of University resources. In the TWU degree program known as the Online Master's in Family Studies, faculty members have used several interactive components in online courses in Research Methods, Statistics, and Teaching Family Sciences, among others. The tools have also augmented work in oncampus doctoral courses. The primary uses have been collaboration and surveys; collaboration through wikis is addressed in this article. A wiki is a set of related webpages that can be authored collectively, typically without special log-on or password entry. The authoring occurs in the web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. through the display of simple mark-up language (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki). Most public wikis operate through open-source code derived from the original WikiWikiWeb, known as the Portland Pattern Repository The Portland Pattern Repository (PPR) is a repository for computer programming design patterns. It was accompanied by a companion website, WikiWikiWeb, which was the world's first wiki. The repository has an emphasis on extreme programming. , developed in 1995 by Ward Campbell (see http://c2.com/ppr/index.html). In a course setting, a wiki provides a collaborative workspace A collaborative workspace or shared workspace is an inter-connected environment in which all the participants in dispersed locations can access and interact with each other just as inside a single entity. that can display documents immediately with a minimal working knowledge of HTML tags A code used in HTML to define a format change or hypertext link. HTML tags are surrounded by the angle brackets < and >.  .
Changes to the documents are made through "live edit" in the
browser window on the Internet. By contrast, a collectively authored
document in a CMS setting requires saving, uploading, and other transfer
of the file among student-authors. The wiki's function cannot be
duplicated among students in the course CMS although it can be achieved
in slightly different format by instructors and teaching assistants
enrolled in a Blackboard course shell.
COLLABORATIVE WEBPAGES Collaborative learning Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches in education that involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. Collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in which learners engage in a common task in which each emerges as both a process and a goal when the focus shifts away from distance education delivery. In spite of the research base validating online collaborative learning (Ehrmann & Collins, 2001; Notar, Ross, & Wilson, 2002; Stacey, 1999), most distance learning continues to be discussed in terms of curriculum delivery (Petrides, 2002). For the TWU program, online collaboration was seen as a desired component to replicate the expected collaboration of graduate students in oncampus settings. To accomplish this, wiki technology was utilized for collaborative webpages. Collaborative webpages allow all students to contribute to a space that is immediately and automatically updated. Using a wiki (Hawaiian word for "quick," correctly pronounced wee-kee but more frequently pronounced wick-ee) for this function promoted student responsibility for some aspects of the course and served as an introduction to collaborative websites (cowebs) (see examples at www.famsci.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl and www.boldproductions.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl). Setting up a wiki can be based on a simple model (see http://www.usemod.com) for limited scope on most servers (for use by individuals, not an entire campus). With advice from a consultant to expect an upload time of 10 minutes, the instructors at TWU were not displeased dis·please v. dis·pleased, dis·pleas·ing, dis·pleas·es v.tr. To cause annoyance or vexation to. v.intr. To cause annoyance or displeasure. with the actual setup time of 60 minutes. Lamb (2004) described a wiki's demands on resources at the University of British Columbia Locations Vancouver The Vancouver campus is located at Point Grey, a twenty-minute drive from downtown Vancouver. It is near several beaches and has views of the North Shore mountains. The 7. as minimal. For the TWU program, resources have been limited to an instructor's time and website. No support from University technical staff has been needed. Wikis are not usually vandalized, perhaps because the inherent lack of security makes them uninteresting (jargon) uninteresting - 1. Said of a problem that, although nontrivial, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and code. to hackers (Lowe, 2003). Thus, the absence of security may be the best protection for such pages that are consigned to servers outside the University system. Unwanted changes to the wiki are more likely to result from inadvertent editing. The open authoring access and lack of security permit users to assist in re-building a wiki page (Guzdial, Rick, & Kehoe, 2001). Thus, the collaborative nature of wikis extends to collaborative repair. WIKIS IN THE ONLINE MASTER'S AT TWU Easily edited, wikis can change appearance with every course or every semester se·mes·ter n. One of two divisions of 15 to 18 weeks each of an academic year. [German, from Latin (cursus) s . The homepage of a wiki (Figure 1) is not necessarily heavily decorated. The example below reflects a single semester's offerings with only six links to activities for three courses. Instructors and graduate students can make changes as needed as needed prn. See prn order. , without having to go through channels to update course materials. Students are introduced to wiki tasks with few instructions. The "how-to" page (Figure 2) proposes a five-step process, and instructions on subsequent wiki pages are condensed con·dense v. con·densed, con·dens·ing, con·dens·es v.tr. 1. To reduce the volume or compass of. 2. To make more concise; abridge or shorten. 3. Physics a. to only three steps. In our program, few students have needed help in posting to the wiki. In a class of 75, we expect to hear from no more than two or three students who want a teaching assistant's help or encouragement. The usual help is a restating of the instructions, suggesting that students are merely insecure about the process, and they are not unable to follow the instructions. An exception to this rule: in one of our Master's courses, a student attempted to repair an error on her own, to the extreme. Not realizing that a Recent Versions option would allow fast correction, she made multiple edits and saves, totaling more than 120 versions and ending the day in despair. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Only one student (in more than four semesters of wiki assignments) failed to see the "big code box" mentioned in instructions. A screenshot See screen shot. (Figure 3) displays the editing area that students must decode (1) To convert coded data back into its original form. Contrast with encode. (2) Same as decrypt. See cryptography. (cryptography) decode - To apply decryption. to make changes to the wiki. Wiki content varies from group projects in one course to individual submissions in another. A graduate course in Readings organized content knowledge by decades across a century. Thus, the collaborative work involved "decade teams" posting to a wiki that served as a timeline. In another course, a wiki page (Figure 4) invited graduate students' advice on andragogy (teaching and learning principles for adult students). These wikis remain on an instructor's website for access by students. COURSE MANAGEMENT The collaborative wiki has also been used to put into students' hands some of the housekeeping tasks of course management. Thus, some of faculty's responsibilities are broken out of the bundle of usual chores associated with setting up and running a course. Unbundling A regulatory requirement that enables a competing service provider to purchase parts of the incumbent local exchange carrier's network in order to provide service to its customers. See ILEC. faculty tasks has been a key goal in some distance learning settings in order to make best use of faculty and staff energy and talent (Howell, Williams, & Lindsay, 2003; Paulson, 2002). Wikis contribute to this goal by putting the students literally in charge of posting and maintaining work that ranges from team sign-ups to collaborative reports to be compiled and jointly edited without burdening individual students as project coordinators. Housekeeping tasks serve another purpose: they introduce students to the wiki in a nongraded non·grad·ed adj. 1. Being without grade levels: a nongraded elementary school. 2. Consisting of particles of essentially the same size, as soil. activity but one that is practical and meaningful. Such introductory activities are as necessary today as they were in the early days of using Internet tools for collaboration in higher education higher education Study beyond the level of secondary education. Institutions of higher education include not only colleges and universities but also professional schools in such fields as law, theology, medicine, business, music, and art. (c.f., Agostinho, Lehoe, & Hedberg, 1997). [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] Wiki pages (Figure 5) were used for sign-ups for group work in two courses. This page used a course icon that also appeared in the CMS course shell and on the CD courseware. The other course used several illustrations that were created for a class project. STUDENT AND FACULTY RESPONSE Research has indicated that students adapt quickly to coweb technology and appreciate the opportunity to collaborate asynchronously (Nicol, Littlejohn, & Grierson, 2005). In fact, while the wiki is a new tool for most of our students in the Online Master's, blogs are generally known and understood, as are even more fluid web communication such as instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or . In addition, the wiki is quickly understood as an alternative discussion tool to the CMS discussion board. Thus, use of the wiki meets little resistance and only temporary consternation at how it works. [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] While the language and content of new venues such as wikis and blogs are typically described as informal and the works contained therein are frequently of a personal nature, an ethnographic eth·nog·ra·phy n. The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. eth·nog study by Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht, and Swartz (2004) cited an example of formal and science-based blogging by a graduate student. Their research documented the wide range of language and foci already present in publicly accessed blog sites. As wikis and blogs are used more frequently in education, that range will increasingly include scholarly works and course activities. Cowebs do not necessarily prompt more discussion than threaded discussions A running commentary of messages between two or more people in a discussion group. See message thread and discussion group. in a CMS like Blackboard. Craig et al. (2000) reported an average of just 1.2 posts per student in each coweb discussion of a large class of 170 students. The pattern of most students submitting only one post is not unusual in online discussions; in this program's use of wikis, participation has been expected to be similar and ongoing discussion has not been a goal. Our program has not surveyed students on wiki use specifically, but evaluations have sought student opinion about online interaction. The majority of students in our courses report feeling connected in the online setting, but many continue to cite the loss of interaction as a disadvantage to distance learning. For example, local results from the Priorities Survey for Online Learners (PSOL PSOL Proportional Solenoid ) by Noel-Levitz, Inc., indicated high satisfaction on connectedness (n = 21, representing a response rate of 55%). The PSOL reported means on student satisfaction for responses on a 7 point scale. On items regarding frequency of student/instructor interactions, the local Family Studies mean was 6.10 (compared to the national mean of 5.68). Regarding value of student-to-student collaborations, the Family Studies mean was 5.33 (compared to the national mean of 5.17). In subsequent course evaluations A course evaluation is a paper or electronic questionnaire, which requires a written or selected response answer to a series of questions in order to evaluate the instruction of a given course. that included open-ended questions A closed-ended question is a form of question, which normally can be answered with a simple "yes/no" dichotomous question, a specific simple piece of information, or a selection from multiple choices (multiple-choice question), if one excludes such non-answer responses as dodging a , students commonly commented that the convenience of anytime, anywhere courses made up for lack of contact with instructor and peers. While our students acknowledged the trade-off between connection and convenience, their comments speak to the need for a sense of community in online settings (Card & Horton, 2000; Moller, Harvey, Downs, & Godshalk, 2000) and the need to foster student interactions online (Card & Horton). Reporting on distance learning students' perception of isolation and blogs' impact on that, Dickey (2004) concluded that interactive web tools can reduce feelings of isolation or alienation. The novelty of blogs may contribute to students' positive response (Dickey; Ferdig & Trammell, 2004). So might the use of wikis increase students' sense of connection, if only by supplying an additional interactive strategy to a course's set of tools. Distance students prefer a variety of teaching methods (Andrusyszyn, Cragg, & Humbert, 2001) and that variety encourages students to develop expertise and professors to become comfortable with online technology (Andrusyszyn, Cragg, & Humbert; Levin, Levin, & Waddoups, 1999). The program's faculty members found that as their own comfort with technology increased, they also served as better mentors to students in assignments that require using new technology. Although the number of students who have been graduated is still small, this increasing comfort level with technology has been evident in graduates' electronic portfolios. CONCLUSION Collaborative work through blogs moves learning from instructor-centered to student-centered (Oravec, 2003); wikis hold the same promise. Just as some University instructors have found blogs superior to class discussion boards (Quible, 2005), their use of wikis may improve upon current techniques to generate collaboration and web publishing Creating a Web site and placing it on the Web server. A Web site is a collection of HTML pages with the home page typically named INDEX.HTML. Web sites are designed using Web authoring software which provides a graphical layout capability or by hand coding in HTML or both. . Uses of wikis (as well as blogs) are increasing on campuses, promoted by online resources such as Weblogs in Higher Education (see http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog.php). Wikis and blogs are now also available through CMS products. For example, plug-ins and enhancements for Blackboard and WebCT promise the same functions with the assurance of technical support, user-friendly mark-up (through a formatting toolbar A row or column of on-screen buttons used to activate functions in the application. Many toolbars are customizable, letting you add and delete buttons as required. Toolbars may be fixed in position or may float, which means they can be dragged to a more convenient location in the , for example) that obviates the need to learn HTML or wiki formatting codes, and the protective boundary of the CMS that reduces security threats. The incorporation of web-based interactive wikis, along with the CMS adopted by the University, supports not only our graduate students' current course work but also their development as lifelong learners in use of technology. More specifically, students in an online program benefit from what is called a dual education (Haythornthwaite, Kazmer, Robins, & Shoemaker, 2000), mastering online interaction as well as the curriculum. Thus, for our Online Master's students at TWU, the dual education is in technology skill building (not a typical goal in their professions) and study of the family. References Agostinho, S., Lehoe, G., & Hedberg, J. (1997). Online collaboration for learning: A case study of a post graduate university course. Paper presented at the Third Australian World Wide Web Conference, Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia. Andrusyszyn, M. A., Cragg, B., & Humbert, J. (2001). Nurse practitioner nurse practitioner n. Abbr. NP A registered nurse with special training for providing primary health care, including many tasks customarily performed by a physician. preferences for distance education methods related to learning style, course content, and achievement, Journal of Nursing Education, 40(4), 163-170. Card, K. A., & Horton, L. (2000). Providing access to graduate education using computer-mediated communication Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) can be defined broadly as any form of data exchange across two or more networked computers. More frequently, the term is narrowed to include only those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats (i.e. . International Journal of Instructional Media, 27(3), 235-245. Craig, D., ul-Haq, S., Khan, S., Zimring, C. Kehoe, C., Rick, J., et al., (2000). Using an unstructured collaboration tool A collaboration tool is something that helps people collaborate. The term is often used to mean collaborative software, but collaboration tools were being used before computers existed, a piece of paper can for example can be used as collaboration tool. to support peer interaction in large college classes. In B. Fishman & S. O'Connor-Divelbiss (Eds.), Fourth international conference of the learning sciences This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. (pp. 178-184). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dickey, M. D. (2004). The impact of web-logs (blogs) on student perceptions of isolation and alienation in a web-based distance-learning environment. Open Learning, 19(3), 279-291. Ehrmann, S. C., & Collins, M. (2001). Emerging models of online collaborative learning: Can distance enhance quality? Educational Technology Magazine, 41(5), 34-38. Ferdig, R. E., & Trammell, K. D. (2004). Content delivery in the "blogosphere The total universe of blogs. See blog. ." T. H. E. Journal, 31(7), 12-15. Guzdial, M., Rick, J., & Kehoe, C. (2001). Beyond adoption to invertion: Teacher-created collaborative activities in higher education. The Journal of the Learning Sciences The Journal of the Learning Sciences (JLS) is an official publication of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) covering research on learning and education. , 10(3), 265-279. Haythornthwaite, C., Kazmer, M. M., Robins, J., & Shoemaker, S. (2000). Community development among distance learners: Temporal and technological dimensions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 6(1). Retrieved September 9, 2005, from http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol6/issue1/haythornthwaite.html Howell, S. L., Williams, P. B., & Lindsay, N. K. (2003). Thirty-two trends affecting distance education: An informed foundation for strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. . Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 6(3). Retrieved September 9, 2005, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall63/howell63.html Lamb, B. (2004, April). Taking a walk on the wiki side. Syllabus. Retrieved September 9, 2005, from http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=9200 Levin, J. A., Levin, S. R., & Waddoups, G. L. (1999). Multiplicity in learning and teaching: A framework for developing innovative online education. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 32(2), 256-269. Lowe, J. W. (2003). Other people's data and wiki web sites. Geospatial Solutions, 13(6), 42-45. Moller, L. A., Harvey, D., Downs, M., & Godshalk., V. (2000). Identifying factors that effect learning community development and performance in asynchronous Refers to events that are not synchronized, or coordinated, in time. The following are considered asynchronous operations. The interval between transmitting A and B is not the same as between B and C. The ability to initiate a transmission at either end. distance education. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 1(4), 293-305. Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., & Swartz, L. (2004). Why people blog. Communications of the Asoociation of Computer Machinery, 47(12), 41-46. Nicol, D., Littlejohn, A., & Grierson, H. (2005). The importance of structuring information and resources within shared workspaces during collaborative design learning. Open Learning, 20(1), 31-50. Notar, C. E., Ross, K. G., & Wilson, J. D. (2002). Distance learning for the development o higher-level cognitive skills cognitive skill Psychology Any of a number of acquired skills that reflect an individual's ability to think; CSs include verbal and spatial abilities, and have a significant hereditary component . Education, 122(4), 642-648. Oravec, J. A. (2003). Blending by blogging: Weblogs in blended learning Blended Learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning. Blended learning can be accomplished through the use of 'blended' virtual and physical resources. A typical example of this would be a combination of technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used initiatives. Journal of Educational Media, 28(2/3), 225-233. Paulson, K. (2002). Reconfiguring faculty roles for virtual settings. Journal of Higher Education, 73(1), 123-140. Petrides, L. A. (2002). Web-based technologies for distributed (or distance) learning: Creating learning-centered education experiences in the higher education classroom. International Journal of Instructional Media, 29(1), 69-78. Quible, Z. K. (2005, March). Blogs: A natural in business communication courses. Business Communication Quarterly, 68(1), 73-76. Stacey, E. (1999). Collaborative learning in an online environment. Journal of Distance Education, 14(2), 14-33. MARY BOLD Texas Woman's University, Denton, TX USA mbold@twu.edu |
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