Forum:Technical Group Internal Wiki Memo

The University of Tulsa

Memo

To: TU Grad Wiki Team From: TU Grad Wiki Technical Group CC: Carl Nery Date: 3/6/2012

Re: TU Grad Wiki Public Access

TU Grad Wiki Team members, this brief memo will give a brief overview on the current state of public access to the wiki site, and provide information looking forward. Information pertaining specifically to how the wiki will be promoted after its completion to increase visibility, and also how it can be made "findable" by the audience it is intended for. If anyone should have questions, comments, or ideas in relation to this topic, don't hesitate to contact a member of the technical group. Feedback is most welcome.

TU Grad Wiki Public Access Due to the nature of the hosting site, wikia.org, currently the TU Grad Wiki site is accessible by the public. That being said, the URL of the site is not published anywhere and navigating to the site requires prior knowledge of said URL. Once the wiki is complete, we can then publish the URL making the site easier to find.

Looking Forward Our primary goal is to increase awareness of the wiki's existence and develop a plan to maintain and build the wiki site. By publishing the wiki and making it readily available to the public, more people will be able to add information to the wiki. While this can be very beneficial and make the site more useful to students interested in grad school, it also presents a challenge. Edits to the wiki must be reviewed to ensure reliability and accuracy. In order to maintain the wiki site, peer review must continue. As the viewer base of the wiki increases, especially those making submissions, so must the number of peer reviewers.

It's also valuable to the wiki to promote community involvement. Not everyone will want to be involved, but having an avenue for those that do will keep them coming back. Simple thinks like question and answer sessions will spread word about the site, and discussions will allow people to share opinions. Visible community involvement also makes the wiki more appealing to users, promoting its continued use. The bottom line is that community involvement is a very good way to keep people interested and keep them coming back.

In order to make the wiki site "findable" we need to look at two areas. The first, and easiest, is ensuring we provide good information on the site. This will allow our wiki to be found be search engines such as Google.com or Yahoo.com. The second way to make the site findable is through promotion. One way to promote the wiki is to show the university the benefit of the site and generate interest in having it linked on TU's own website. Another way to promote the wiki is to partner with other wiki sites that share our subject, but may not have information as specific as what we provide. This would help build a network of information for students looking to continue their education by going to grad school.