Twiki and wetpaint: two wikis in academic environments

Abstract

This paper describes a community-based effort to preserve organizational knowledge and to orientate newcomers to a graduate school. It presents a very brief review of recent research on wiki use in corporate and organizational environments and initial data from two wiki implementation iterations within our academic community. We contrast use of a TWiki with that of a WetPaint wiki. Our data suggest that with low barriers to participation and a great deal of patience, wikis can be useful stores for community information and knowledge sharing.