Very cool discovery today: I stumbled across presentations given by Rice University IT staff on their use of Confluence. Rice University’s IT Podcast videos includes a four part video series on how they selected the wiki and how it’s used. Recorded in April 2008 at Educause, each video is about 10-15 minutes long.
Part I: Introducing wikis
Part II: Why they selected Confluence (Requirements gathering: the database, flexible permission system, user authentication, WYSIWYG editor, browsers, etc.) and the final showdown between Confluence, XWiki, and DocuWiki.
Part III: The timeline for implementing Confluence (running a pilot, starting a production site, and managing the process with a big & diverse team, and creating trust in a “wikified” world)
Part IV: Documentation on a wiki (navigation, design, features, templates, process and tips for creating a public documentation space) and Q&A.
What’s amazing about this story is how the introduction of the wiki spurred a kind of cultural revolution within Rice’s IT groups. The wiki challenged their beliefs about permissions, workflow, and process, and in Part 4 of the series they discuss the positive outcomes and results of the wiki revolution (but don’t skip parts 1-3). It’s worth your time!
See all four parts on the Rice IT Podcasts.
