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transition from static site to wiki
You're quite right, Allison it is a transitional situation, although the seperation of members and public is not the case. The static site is no longer maintained but remains in situ for a little while longer. Webstats tell me that most visitors by far go directly to the wiki now, and it needs to be better consolidated. Thanks for letting me know the linking is still not sufficiently obvious. A less gradual approach to transition, such as a sudden complete changeover would have been much cleaner but it's easy to say that with hindsight. Introducing the tool to a distributed CoP I introduced the wiki through an existing strong community which existed entirely on an email list, not particularly technical people at all in terms of internet tools. The take up was much more straightforward than I expected, just a few questions and answers. So this was an example of community first, and then wiki. (The other way around I think is harder, but wikipedia shows how it can happen) Now with the success of the wiki as a valuable directory and resource, the mailing list still remains crucial for community interaction and it's only a fraction of the active CoP members who edit the wiki. There may also be some people who have found the wiki but not joined the CoP, it's difficult to tell when anonymous editing is allowed. More about adding a Wiki for a CoP Allison, thanks for asking for more about my pet project My first attempts at starting wikis ultimately failed because the hosting services ( wiki farms ) weren't up to it then. So I determined to learn how to install one for myself and chose mediawiki. The situation with eg wikispaces has evidently improved a lot since then. The community of practice is concerned with the production and promotion of artisan or craft cider - individuals with orchards, farms, presses, shops as well as many who are just enthusiasts. A lot of scientific, practical advice and mutual support passes through the discussion list. I launched the Wiki simply by announcing it on the mailing list, and there were surprisingly few qualms about it. Some people needed to have the location of the edit tab and the login button pointed out, and there was some discussion about attribution. After a while it became apparent that the easiest thing for people to do was to add in information copying a format which had already begun - so the page which grew fastest and proved the value of the wiki was a directory of outlets, the cider pub guide. That's useful to both producers and consumers, but it's only hard data - not the knowledge about practice or soft data which is more difficult to capture but is starting to happen as well now, with some members now confident to create whole new pages about technique and equipment. Indicators of success include: Enough people care about the wiki to fix mistakes and teach others. The sense of ownership which the group expresses. They advocate the online guide as an improvement over the equivalent printed book or static websites, much in the same way as Wikipedians compare themselves with Brittanica. Further information: The Wiki is here: http://ukcider.co.uk/wiki/ The CoP is here: http://groups.google.com/group/ukcider I wrote a report which only captures the early stages here and an attempt at a case study here |
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