[Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversity

[Erik Moeller]

Delirium:

> To what extent are wikis well suited to any of these 
> endeavors?

A very reasonable question. When all you have is a hammer ...

MediaWiki is great for textual content, decent for images, usable for 
other files. It is also getting good at structuring content in various 
ways (categories, RSS extension). Wikis in general are a powerful tool 
to develop simple workflows without having to write applications, e.g., 
I can create something like "Featured article candidates" or "Votes for 
deletion" from scratch without being a coder.

This covers much of the content and the process side of Wikisophia, e.g. 
I can see how a certification model might be implemented using basic 
wiki pages. It does not cover some of the needs for publication (i.e. 
peer review), but this is something we're actively pursuing for 
Wikipedia already, and my intuition is that the solution (stable 
revision flagging) will very likely be similar.

What MediaWiki does not cover is the very large and crucial area of 
systematic learning and assessment.  Its interaction capabilities are 
also somewhat limited, though probably sufficient in the early stages of 
the project. This is an area that is currently staked out by modular 
learning management systems like [[Moodle]], which allow you to use many 
different pedagogical tools for any particular course.

Consequently, we also lack support for standards in the eLearning field, 
most importantly probably [[SCORM]], which are currently used to 
exchange instruction files in the eLearning community. Obviously, this 
makes it very difficult to get people from that community involved.

I am just at the beginning of the technical needs evaluation for 
Wikisophia, which will take several months at least. But my current 
belief is that we either need to interface with existing eLearning 
systems or, an approach which I generally prefer, add some of the 
desired functionality to MediaWiki (possibly as extensions) and turn it 
into a serious competitor for Moodle.

I am strongly opposed to launching Wikisophia before its technical needs 
are fully evaluated and, to the extent which is necessary for the basic 
operation of the project, met.

Erik