wiki

Formally recording what we have learned in the workplace is a worthwhile process that is often forgotten or not undertaken because there is no time or immediate incentive to do so. Web-based technologies such as wikis and blogs have demonstrated that enabling people to quickly publish and publicise their knowledge within their peer group is potentially a very powerful means of undertaking collaborative knowledge capture. This article explores how Drupal, an open-source content management framework can be used to facilitate this process in a community centric manner.

So much to know, so little time

A workplace such as an architecture practice generates a lot of 'on the job' knowledge which at the time can seem obvious or worthless but afterwards can be invaluable. Such knowledge can range from the most appropriate window detail to use in a certain situation, to the most efficient way of modeling that window detail in the office CAD package. Usually these little morsels of knowledge are never formally recorded because it is just more work that typically is not budgeted for, or acknowledged by, management. As a consequence finding an answer to one of the aforementioned questions becomes dependent on your ability to understand the workplace's knowledge topography (i.e. who knows what). But even though it maybe common knowledge in your workplace that Bob has a collection of decent window details or Andrew 'the CAD guy' will help you out, what happens when they are not available, or even worse quit their job to work at the more fashionable architecture practice across town?

Whilst Wiki markup language can be a little intimidating for the novice user it is hard to argue with the overall success of the Wiki concept especially when you take a look at sites like Wikipedia. I have tried a number of Wiki tools but DocuWiki is my favourite for a number of reasons.

Firstly it just seems to work with very little hassle, mainly because it is written in PHP and does not rely on any back-end database, preferring instead to save all data to files on the disk. I also like it because it gets up and running without any major configuration process, if you have the correct PHP extensions loaded and file permissions set it will just work with almost no questions asked. To top it all off if the extensive built in functionality does not meet your needs it can be easily extended through the use of plug-ins as this Linux.com article illustrates.