Wiki Issues

Parental/Safety Concerns

The best ways to get parents excited about your wiki are to inform them and to include them. See a  Sample Wiki Warranty.doc  (Word document to download and customize for your use). Prior to giving students access to the wiki, send home a letter and permission slip with all students (and give points for a signed permission slip). The letter should tell parents what the wiki is for and how well their student will be protected by the safety features you have in place. Involve parents in understanding the wiki by providing a parent page or area where they can comment or share experiences. Of course, you will need to provide them with log-in information and/or membership to be able to edit/add content.

Student Wiki Warranty

As active "makers" of the wiki, your students must warranty its contents. Have students sign a Wiki Warranty (Sample Wiki Warranty.doc), complete with stated consequences, for your wiki. One very effective way to make them pay attention to the warranty contents is to include it on the wiki site. You may want to post a warranty of your own, perhaps this sample wiki warranty, then allow students to reopen it and add to it by consensus as new situations arise. Be sure that you lock the warranty page contents unless the whole class is aware that edits are being made. You do not want students secretly changing it without notice.

Editing?

Students will be students, and at least one is bound to "vandalize" another student's work on your class wiki. Make sure that your wiki warranty specifically discusses this issue and spells out the consequences of maliciously damaging another student's work. Since the wiki will often involve changing work done by others, it is especially important that you have an open discussion about the difference between "vandalizing" and making changes to improve the content. A change intended for the good will always include some written "discussion" of the reasoning behind the change. Be sure that all students know who is responsible for various sections of the wiki to avoid any "accidental" changes to another student or group's work. As the wiki owner, you have the ability to rewind history and take the wiki back to a prior state, as well.

Copyright

Wikis can include writing, images, and sound or video files. Most wikis fall under a special copyright agreement called Creative Commons. This essentially means that any content users place on the wiki can be used by others under a "share and share alike" arrangement. All Creative Commons uses must be properly cited.You and your students do not own materials you find on the web, such as music, video, or images. You must make sure that anything you do use from other sources is also under a Creative Commons license. See further information about copyright and Creative Commons licensing. Important note: Unless your wiki is completely password-protected and seen only by registered students of your course, you and your students may NOT use copyrighted materials under "Fair Use." Far Use does not permit you to place the items on the web.

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