Wikis are not for every one.
Most people’s encounters with wikis have been through public wikis like Wikipidia and other similar wikis. These wikis are open to the public netizens meaning that anybody can edit the content of the wiki. Being able to edit the content son freely by who ever has given wikis less then a favorable rating by many, fearing that the content might not be totally correct. But in recent years, this weakness has turn into being one of the wiki’s strongest point. But there is another facet of the wiki that has emerged in part because of the fear of erroneous editing of wiki content.
Access control is a powerful aspect of wikis that most people know nothing about. In simple terms wikis can be either public or private. "A public wiki is one that is visible to anyone on the Web, without their having to log in" (West & West, p. 12). Private wikis are by invite only; this is probably the main reason most people do not know this side of the wiki. Access control, or closing the wiki to the public means that the wiki is not for everyone.
Making the wiki closed makes it a very powerful and useful tool in collaboration both in educational and private use. The fear of content being corrupted by outsiders is removed; removing this factor removes this concern and allows the team to focus on the goal of the wiki. This security feature has opened up wikis to classroom application (West and West, p. 16). More teachers are rethinking the wiki and many are starting to apply wikis on a limited basis in the classroom.
Making a wiki private is easy, just make sure the wiki provider offers this feature though. No doubt before to long all wiki providers will offer this feature. In one way this has radically changed the way of wiki-ing. Inviting members to the wiki is even easier. This is accomplished through an e-mail invite, where the invitee has to create a login. Even "…if someone comes across your wiki’s URL, they will not be able to view the wiki…instead [they will] see a log-in page…" that requires a password (West & West p. 11).
In the end not all wikis are intended for everyone, but at the end of a wiki project the team may elect to make it public if they so desire.
West, J. A., West, M. L., (2009) Using Wikis for Online Collaboration. The Power of the
Read-Write Web. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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