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Adding Activities

12. Wiki

A wiki is a web-based system that lets users edit a set of linked pages. In Moodle, you would normally use a wiki when you want your students to create content collaboratively.

A well-known wiki is Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia.

The OpenLearn Create wiki has a variety of options. Please see the individual help by each item for more information.

A wiki is not normally suitable for a standalone OER which does not have tutor support.

You need to have the Course Manager or Teacher role to be able to manage learner use of a wiki in OpenLearn Create, so will need to complete the Data Declaration form to get this role (please contact the OpenLearn create mailbox to request the form). 

Step 1:

Add resource or activity and click on wiki.

Give the wiki a name and a description. 

You can choose to display the description on the main page - if enabled, the description will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.

Step 2:

Configure the Wiki settings

Sub-wikis (default is Single wiki for course)

  • Single wiki for course - This wiki behaves as one single wiki. Everybody on the course sees the same pages.
  • One wiki per group - Members of each group see an entirely separate copy of the wiki (sub-wiki) specific to their group. You can only see pages created by people in the same group. If you are in more than one group, or you have permissions that allow you to view all groups, you get a dropdown to choose a group.
  • Separate wiki for every user - Every single user gets an entirely different wiki. You can only see your own wiki unless you have permissions that allow you to view others, when you get a dropdown to choose a user. (This can be used as a way for students to contribute work, although you should consider other ways to achieve this such as the Assessment activity.)

Note that the group option works with the chosen grouping. It will ignore groups in other groupings.

Annotation system (default No) - Enables the Annotation tab, for users with the appropriate permission. With this tab you can add inline annotations to wiki pages (for example, teacher comments on student work).

Time allowed for edit (default No timeout) - If you select a timeout, people editing the wiki are only allowed to edit it for a given time. The wiki locks pages while they are being edited (so that two people can't edit the same page at once), so setting a timeout prevents the wiki becoming locked for others. For further information about the time allowed for edit function, look at the help text in the Edit settings form.

Allow editing from - If you enable this option the wiki enters read-only mode until the given date. In read-only mode users can see pages, navigate between them, view history, and participate in discussions, but they cannot edit pages.

Prevent editing from - If you enable this option the wiki enters read-only mode from the given date onwards.

Template - A template is a predefined set of wiki pages. When a template is set, the wiki starts off with the content defined in the template. The template applies to each subwiki; in "One wiki per group" mode, for example, each group's wiki is initialised with the pages in the template. To create a template, write the pages you want on any wiki, then visit the Index page and click the "Save wiki as template" button. (You can also manually create templates in other software; it is an extremely simple XML format. Look at a saved template to see the format.) You can add the template after the wiki has been created. Adding a template only affects newly created sub-wiki's, existing ones will remain as at present.

Show word counts (default Yes) - If switched on then word counts for the pages will be calculated and displayed at the bottom of the main content.

Link to import pages (default unchecked) - Checking the box will add the ability to 'import' pages from other wikis in the course into the current wiki

Step 3:

If the wiki is to be graded, set up the grading criteria.

Grade - Select the type of grading used for this activity. If "scale" is chosen, you can then choose the scale from the "scale" dropdown. If using "point" grading, you can then enter the maximum grade available for this activity.

Grade category - This setting controls the category in which this activity's grades are placed in the gradebook.

Grade to pass - This setting determines the minimum grade required to pass. The value is used in activity and course completion, and in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red.

Step 4:

You probably will not need to touch the Common module settings unless you are using groups.

You can ignore Restrict access unless you need to add a restriction.

Save and display

Step 5:

The basic wiki will display.  A message will appear on the screen saying:

This wiki’s start page has not yet been created.  Would you like to create it?

Click on the create page button.

The start page settings will appear.  You will need to edit the page by inserting content, usually this would include the instructions to the learners of what the activity is about and what they need to do.  The page comes with the following instructions:

Edit the page below.

  • Make a link to another page by typing the page name in double square brackets: [[page name]]. The link will become active once you save changes.
  • To create a new page, first make a link to it in the same way.
  • While editing, you can type a link to a page that doesn’t exist yet, such as [[Frogs]]. Then save this page and click on the ‘Frogs’ link to create the new page.
  • It is also possible to create new pages from the ‘View’ tab using the ‘Create new page’ box.

You can also upload file attachments for the start page.

Save changes and you are ready to start using the wiki.

Step 6:

Your start page will appear with the content you added.  Below the page will be two options:

  • Add new section to this page (a content window appears for the section on the page)
  • Create new page (uses the same procedure for editing as for the start page)

You might want to use these options to create a further instructions page, for example about how to use the wiki and wiki etiquette.

Above the Start page will be edit and history tabs as well as the view tab.  You and the learners will be able to see these tabs and their content.

Above the tabs on every wiki page are three buttons:

  • Wiki index – shows the structure of the wiki and if there are any missing pages.  It also gives the option for printing the wiki.
  • Wiki changes – shows the date, time, page, number of words and who changed a page content
  • Participation by user (the learner view is ‘My participation’) – a downloadable report of all user participation in the wiki, including grades.