Wikis for Supporting Distributed Collaborative Writing  

Wikis allow distributed teams to collaboratively write and edit documents through the Internet in a shared online workspace, without the need for special HTML knowledge or tools. The flexibility of wiki technology is a boon for increased cooperative work on large team projects. However, wiki technology also complicates notions of usable design as the information architecture of a wiki site may be created on the fly by all participants rather than by a dedicated technical communicator. This paper describes the basic technology of wikis, some advantages and disadvantages, and areas of concern with regard to information design.

Wei, Carolyn, Brandon Maust, Jennifer Barrick, Elisabeth Cuddihy and Jan H. Spyridakis. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Writing>Wikis