[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/blogwiki.jpg”]McMaster University Library has expanded their services to include hosting blogs and wikis for interested faculty and staff. The library has installed the popular blog software WordPress to host blogs locally and PmWiki to host wikis locally.

“We've noticed a trend that more and more faculty are using emerging tools like blogs and wikis to extend in-class discussions, promote group-work, and provide a platform for collaboration and distributed research,” says librarian Amanda Etches-Johnson, who is spearheading the project. “In a world where web technologies are changing the face of scholarly communication, we see this service as a natural extension of the library's traditional role in managing access to the university's academic resources and scholarly information.”

Geography and Earth Sciences liaison librarian Cathy Moulder recently collaborated with professors Carolyn Eyles and Michael Mercier on wiki assignments for a fourth-year geography class.

Both instructors were enthusiastic about the wiki project and reported that they would definitely use the technology again. They felt that students had been required to consider the potential world-wide audience of their wiki and to write carefully.

Students also had to consider physical organization and logical structure of their information, as well as content. The general caliber of the results was judged to be much higher than the usual symposia or written term papers.

For more ideas on how blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools are being used in teaching and research, take a look at the following links: