NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jennifer Collings

Weekly meetings, a pile of documents and an inbox flooded with emails -- all are expected when communicating regularly with your team. But what about those teams that are spread across multiple time zones? Synthesizing information becomes an even bigger challenge, and some employees in the Science Directorate have found a way to hurdle this communication obstacle with the use of "wikis."

A wiki is a Web page that allows any user to edit the content. Non-technical users need not worry; even the least proficient computer users are able to edit wikis. Without any complicated code involved, the Web pages can be edited from any Internet browser with one click of an edit link. Once clicked, the wiki will display a simple editing screen. When you finish making changes, submit them by clicking a button, and your changes show up on the Web site immediately.

Danny Mangosing and Paula Detweiler work together to ensure the wikis used by the CALIPSO team are both secure and easy to use. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

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Pat Lucker, a Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) task leader, explains that her team's wikis began when members needed to collaborate on multiple journal articles that, when complete, would require anonymous peer-reviews. Instead of emailing the papers around and having several different versions, Danny Mangosing, a systems engineer with CALIPSO, suggested using a set of wikis to post the articles online. Through the wiki page, each reader was able to make edits and comments on the same document.

"The wikis are also helpful when the paper references other articles. Each article can have its own wiki page, and with one click you can read through their references," Lucker explains.

The use of the wikis quickly spiraled into applications for other working groups in the Science Directorate, such as the Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) group. For these teams, the wiki is convenient for distributing important information to the team. The teams post documents relating to everything from instrument logistics to upcoming team meetings, along with photos, relevant links and personal blogs. Each user can download what others have posted, contribute more to the wiki or comment on the content.

Because these teams are spread out, putting these technical documents and data management materials online has been an effective way to track the progress of their projects. "For CALIPSO, the wikis represent about 10 years of discussion that is accessible and, most importantly, has the flexibility to grow," explains Mangosing. "It would take nearly a billion pages to saturate the wiki system and create a problem, so your growth is nearly limitless."

Wikis not only create an online forum for collaboration, but they also save time. With any other Web page, there would have to be a Web master that takes the content and creates the Web page. "This middleman tends to cause bottlenecks and this can be greatly alleviated with the wiki technology," Mangosing explains.

With completely open editing rights, a legitimate concern for security arises. To create a more secure environment, wiki users can be given a user name and password. "All of the wikis have access controls so that only registered, known users can create or edit content. We also limit the access to specific networks wherever possible," says Ben Loyall, a systems administrator for the Science Directorate.

For CALIPSO, Web security is managed by Paula Detweiler, a computer scientist and Web developer for Science Systems and Applications Incorporated (SSAI). This security measure ensures that uninvited guests do not edit the page, which in turn alleviates the need for censorship of the content. "On a wiki page everyone is both a user and a contributor, creating the ultimate central meeting point for a team," Detweiler explains.

For other teams that are interested in communicating through wikis, there is a variety of open source software available to help the average Web user create wiki pages. "The wiki fosters communication in an easy, non-technical way. There isn't any training or maintenance required. It is just simple, accessible communication," Mangosing says.


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry