Wikis are websites and databases developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content. Wikis usually have different pages dedicated to different topics or themes.
The word wiki means "quick" in the Hawaiian language, and the inspiration for the first wiki came from a Honolulu airport bus called the Wiki Wiki Shuttle. Ward Cunningham, the first wiki software developer and inventor of the Wiki Wiki Web in 1995, chose this term because he dubbed his wiki as,"the simplest online database that could possibly work." (Slite)
Photo by Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com on Unsplash
Wikis can focus on a particular subject area, enabling researchers in the field to develop a specialist resource such as a community of practice, online manual etc.
They are particularly well-suited for content which needs to be regularly updated.
As wikis are generally easy to use, they are a great way of enabling members of the public to contribute to a research project, such as 'crowdsourcing'. They can be configured to allow as much editorial control as required.
Some examples are below:
Here are some other types of collaborative editing tools.
