Wiki Technologies

Questionnaire

2009-02-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

Are Wiki Technologies an Effective and Efficient Tool for Knowledge Sharing in Organisations?

Thank you for taking part in my research. My aim is to determine if wiki technologies can aid organisations in enhancing their knowledge sharing capabilities.
The following questions have been designed to give me an insight into how organisations are using wiki technologies and if the users find them to be effective and fit for purpose.
A large amount of research has been conducted into wiki technology uses and states when used in organisations they can theoretically be an effective tool for knowledge sharing. However, this research does not go far enough to look beyond the theory and look at wikis in practice.
Please, therefore, answer the questions with as much criticism or praise you have for wikis from your user experiences. (All responses are completely confidential)
Finally, thank-you very much for taking part in my research!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oWisyyUUD66s6LamsaGT9g_3d_3d

Thank-you for your time, it is much appreciated.

Aims & Objectives of my project

2008-11-12T07:52:00.001-08:00

Aim - To determine if Wiki technologies are an efficient and effective way of sharing knowledge.

Objectives –

Establish the main uses of wiki technologies in knowledge sharing in industry.

To assess and review the current literature on wiki technologies and knowledge sharing.

To compare and contrast wiki technologies with other web 2.0 based knowledge sharing technologies.

To determine the problems facing wiki implementation within organisations.

Aim - To determine if wiki technologies are a novel idea or can be sustained.

Objectives -

Look at the key aspects of making wiki technologies an effective way of sharing knowledge; such as the characteristics of an organisation and the users.

To determine if there is a disconnect between the perceived uses of wiki technologies and the actual uses.

Compare and contrast theoretical uses to practical uses in industry.

To determine if they lead to information overload and if they remain accurate or soon become out of date.

Introduction

2008-11-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

This blog has been set up to keep track of my Final Year Project into Wiki Technologies.

WikiWikiWeb was the first wiki website to be established in 1994, however it wasn’t categorised as a web 2.0 technology until 2005 when Tim O’Reilly ascertained the Internet concept. (O’Reilly, 2005) From here on web 2.0 technologies and wiki technologies have grown considerably with Wikipedia reaching the respectable size of one million articles just before its fourth anniversary in September 2004, (Paquet & Vinson, 2005, P.3) becoming the most prominent wiki to date.

The word Wiki comes from the Hawaiian word for ‘fast’ and can be expanded to ‘what I know as’ (Wikipedia). Wikis are now prominently used in organisations and within education to promote e- learning and knowledge sharing. However, from my initial literature search there seems to be a lot of theory as to how they can assist e-learning and promote knowledge sharing but it is not clear as to if and how they have been implemented within organisations and if they really do assist knowledge sharing.

During my summer internship at I was lucky enough to be given the project of building and implementing a wiki for one of the communications team. When completing this work it raised a number of questions about wiki technologies. Such questions included; are they actually an efficient way of sharing knowledge in organisations and can they be sustained as an efficient way or do they eventually fade out. Through my research methods I also hope to determine reasons as to why after a decade wikis are starting to speedily appear in organisations particularly on company intranets.

After further research within this area I have decided to take these questions and try to answer them in my final year project.