[Air-L] The Wiki: An Environment For Scholarly Conversation and Publishing

McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] gerrymck at iastate.edu
Mon Sep 15 11:51:27 PDT 2008


Colleagues/

I recently had the opportunity to give a brief presentation at the
_Science in the 21st Century: Science, Society, and Information_
conference that was held at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical
Physics in Waterloo, Canada, last week.

ABSTRACT

The Wiki: An Environment For Scholarly Conversation and Publishing

"The Medium Is The Message ... The Audience Is The Content."

Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

A "wiki is a ... collaborative space ... because of its total freedom,
ease of access, and use, [and] simple and uniform navigational
conventions ... ." "[It] ... is also a way to organize and cross-link
knowledge ..." Ward Cunningham, Father of The Wiki (Leuf and
Cunningham, 2001, 16). Most wikis provide the user with a set of
navigation or utility tools such as the ability to create and edit a
page, view recently changed pages, and rollback to previous page
versions. In addition, many wikis include a discussion forum for
proposed page changes.

Among its many perceived benefits are its potential for facilitating a
more creative environment and expanding knowledgebase, and a
significant ability to harness the power of diverse point-of-views in
creating collaborative works.

In this presentation, we will speculate on the Wiki as a digital
environment that not only supports current scholarly practices, but
more importantly, offers a framework for their enhancement and
transformation.

A Link To The PPT (2003) and >>Various A/V Recordings<< Of The
Presentation Are Available At

[ http://tinyurl.com/5o6wzs ]

>>>Please Feel To Comment About The Presentation<<<

Enjoy!!! // Happy Monday!

/Gerry

Gerry McKiernan
Associate Professor
Science and Technology Librarian
Iowa State University Library
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu

There is Nothing More Powerful Than  An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Victor Hugo

[ http://www.blogger.com/profile/09093368136660604490 ]

Iowa: Where the Tall Corn Flows and the (North)West Wind Blows
[ http://alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/ ]




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