Jim Mahoney is Professor of Computer Science at Marlboro College.
Abstract
Although software systems that facilitate courses are becoming common throughout education, few are based on a wiki technology like MediaWiki, in spite of the popularity of wikis in many online intellectual, and in spite of the advantages in encouraging and helping students participate in the Wikipedia community. At Marlboro College we are in the process of developing a web application called "Wikiacademia" which manages course wikis with a markup syntax and feel similar to MediaWiki but with the addition of assignments, grades, and access rights. The software, which uses HTML::Mason, SQLite, and Subversion, was developed in 2005, tested in several courses during early 2006, and is expected to be released under the GPL in the summer of 2006. This poster presents the design goals, software technology, similarities and differences with MediaWiki, and our thoughts after teaching with it for a semester.