last week i co-taught an online course on wikis. i looked through a lot of the ones that were developed in the class to learn what my colleagues around the u.s. were thinking about or working on. a few wikis stood out to me and i posted them on my blog as a reminder to myself to watch their development.
yesterday i joined in on a giant chat session that focused on the implementation of the new nih public access policy, and what it means to libraries around the nation. near the end of the time alloted for the chat someone wrote that they weren’t done yet discussing and wondered where a likely place would be to continue with those that were interested. someone mentioned that a wiki would be a good place to gather documents and have a place to continue chatting.
i realized then that one of the wikis i had been keeping an eye on, http://publishingbiomedresearch.wetpaint.com/, was about that very topic. i pasted the url into the chat and wrote in that people could gather their documents and thoughts there. i think it’s great that a wiki that someone developed for their own interest could turn out to be a watering hole for a large group. this kind of software connects people in unexpected ways.
