Wikispaces
From Newt
Contents |
Strengths
- Easy to use
- Basic account is free
- Unlimited users, pages and messages on all accounts
- At a cost, it is possible to have no advertising, increased file space etc. The Plus account with no advertising and which allows the wiki to be made private for viewing is $5 per month or $50 per year
- Various formatting options – can add bullet points, tables, different fonts, font sizes, colours etc
- Can put in a variety of features on wiki pages eg RSS feeds, Google maps
- A ‘Private Label’ account is available at a cost of $1000 per year, allowing organizations to have an independent wiki environment hosted on the Wikispaces server, with an unlimited number of wikis. These can be made private with encryption. It is possible to set which users can read and edit particular pages on the wiki(s). A 30 day free trial is available. This account allows 40 GB storage. Columbia University in New York uses this service to provide a wiki for every course at the university, according to Wikispaces.
- It is possible to restrict editing access to just people you have invited, even with the free account.
- Appears to be reasonably popular, with 21,000 public wiki spaces (though only those that have entered with a description are listed)
- It is easy to backup your space as a zip file or export space into HTML files
- Supports Web Folders, which allows your wiki to appear like a disk drive on your computer – though only limited functionality on basic plan
- Has statistics with graphs so can find out about the visitors to your wiki
- It is easy to see what changes have been made to the wiki.
- Kept my formatting when pasting text from Word, including bullet points, fonts, font sizes.
- Those who have the relevant knowledge, can insert code eg HTML, Javascript and many other types
Weaknesses
- Need to pay to make your wiki spaces private for viewing, and for certain features like no advertising
Opportunities
- The service seems a generally easy to use and fully featured service, even on the basic account.
- The ‘Private Label’ account could be good for a University wide wiki service
Threats
- No service guarantees
