The victorian web and the victorian course wiki: comparing the educational effectiveness of identical assignments in web 1.0 and web 2.0

In September 2008, the author delivered a keynote at WikiSym2008, in Porto, Portugal entitled "When a Wiki is not a Wiki: Twenty Years of the Victorian Web" in which he argued that the 45,000 documents that then made up www.victorianweb.org function as a moderated wiki and that, therefore, Web 1.0 can function for educational purposes much as Web 2.0 - and has done so for many years. Challenged to employ an actual wiki, Landow taught the same course with the same weekly student assignments in successive years (2009, 2010), the first using the website, the second a closed, password-protected wiki. After briefly describing the composition, history, and authorship of the Victorian Web, key parts of which have existed in multiple hypermedia environments since their creation in 1988 for the Brown University Intermedia project, it presents the assignment, explains its goals, and then sets forth the results of this experience, listing advantages and disadvantages of using the wiki for instructors, students, and the related website.