corporate wiki

A corporate wiki is a wiki used in a corporate context, contrary to a wiki accessible to the public via internet. In some cases this requires additional features of integration in the corporate information landscape, as well as enhanced access control.

Wikis are increasingly used internally by companies and public sector organizations, some as prominent as Adobe, Microsoft and the FBI. Depending on the size of a corporation, they represent an addition or a replacement to centrally-managed Content Management Systems. They potentially allow a more flexible approach to Project Management than dedicated software.

Features of corporate wikis

For a short overview of what wikis can provide to enterprises compared with traditional CMS, see Wiki#Wikis and content management systems. Features of wikis specifically helpful to a corporation include:

• Allow to glue information via quick-and-easy-to-create pages containing links to other corporate information systems, like people directories, CMS, applications, and thus build up knowledge bases.
• Avoiding e-mail overload. Wikis allow all relevant information to be shared by people working on a given project. Conversely, only the wiki users interested in a given project need look at its associated wiki pages, in contrast to high-traffic mailing lists which may burden many subscribers with many messages, regardless of relevance to particular subscribers.
• Access rights, roles. Users can be forbidden from viewing and/or editing given pages, depending on their department or role within the organization.
• Building consensus. Wikis provide a framework for collaborative writing. Particularly, they allow the structured expression of views disagreed upon by authors on a same page.
• Organizing information. Wikis allow users to structure new and existing information. As with content, the structure of data is sometimes also editable by users; see structured wiki.
• Saving time by: Making ideas available; Sharing Knowledge, Having a common glossary, and Managing Related Information. Sometimes used is "If you do not know where to put the information, put it in the wiki".

Corporate wiki solutions

A large set of corporate wiki solutions are available; see list of wiki software and comparison of wiki software. Wikis with the required feature set include TWiki, MoinMoin, XWiki, TikiWiki, Confluence and Socialtext^[1]. Their aim is to provide all ranges of companies with ready-made wiki solutions that can be adapted to SMEs as well as multinational corporations. Amongst those companies, the competition lies as much in corporate philosophy as in what the products look like. For example, MoinMoin and Socialtext value simplicity, where TWiki puts an emphasis on structured wikis where users can create wiki applications. Most of them have adopted an Open-Source mindset and allow developers or even users to create purposed applications.

Wiki software packages not specifically built for corporations are also used at the workplace, such as MediaWiki or DokuWiki. Although they can be used to build simple knowledgebases and internal websites, they often lack enterprise features such as fine grained access control, per page name space for attachments, or integration with other enterprise tools.

See also

• Comparison of wiki software
• Collaborative editing
• Collaborative writing
• Corporate portal
• Enterprise social software
• Wiki application
• Wikinomics (book)
• — specific to Wikipedia, but corporate wikis can function similarly

References

1. ^ list sorted according to WikiMatrix Statistics

• Andersen, Espen (2005). Using Wikis in a Corporate Context. In Handbuch E-Learning. A. Hohenstein and K. Wilbers (eds). Cologne, WoltersKluwer. 5.8: 15.
• Guy, Marieke (2006). Wiki or Won't He? A Tale of Public Sector Wikis. Ariadne Issue 49.

External links

• CorporateWikis - a page about corporate wikis on WikiWikiWeb, the very first wiki
• b:Wiki Science/How to start a Wiki#Business Environments
• "Wikis evolve as collaboration tools" - InfoWorld Jan 2007 review of Wiki products designed for enterprise use
• "Corporate Wiki Users: Results of a Survey" — 168 corporate wiki users answered this Survey
• Wikis in Enterprises - survey by the Department of Personnel Economics and Human Resource Management of the University of Cologne.

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