Welcome

From JITT

Welcome to the Knowledge in Social Software Wiki... a portal for our own blend of 'collective intelligence'. What is a wiki? A wiki is a collaborative space... but above all it's a space for contribution, a space for ideas, for concepts, for knowledge sharing.

The difference between a blog and a wiki is that a blog is a place for sharing information (usually in narrative form - where each member edits their own entries on an individual basis) whereas a wiki is a space for constructing knowledge collaboratively (where each member has an opportunity to edit any entry). Depending on the kind of wiki, a wiki generally includes opportunities for discussion and maintains a history which tracks developments within the Wiki. This wiki has discussion and history tabs for each page (see the top of each page). This way, all members who contribute to the knowledge base of the Wiki have a chance to collaboratively agree on what information works best for the intended audience. When one is editing a wiki page, there is an option to add a short note (the summary field) giving reasons or comments about the editing decisions/contributions you have made... This note is then added to the history log for the page.

Wikipedia describes the derivation of the term 'wiki' as follows:

The term wiki is a shortened form of wiki wiki which is from the native language of Hawaii (Hawaiian), where it is commonly used as an adjective to denote something "quick" or "fast".

Somewhat more interestingly, it could also be described as an acronym for:

Web Integrated Knowledge Invitation.

Imagine a collective brain, an infinite mind, an opportunity to navigate multiple memories... now, there's a WIKI!