A DSL for Corporate Wiki Initialization

Enterprise Information Systems

Azanza

2013

Self Cite

The organisation of corporate wikis tends to deteriorate as time goes by. Rearranging categories, structuring articles and even moving sections among articles are cumbersome tasks in current wiki engines. This discourages the layman. But, it is the layman who writes the articles, knows the wiki content and detects refactoring opportunities. Our goal is to improve the refactoring affordances of current wiki engines by providing an alternative front-end tuned to refactoring. This is achieved by (1) surfacing the structure of the wiki corpus as a mind map, and (2) conducting refactoring as mind map reshaping. To this end, we introduce WikiWhirl, a domain-specific language for wiki refactoring. WikiWhirl is supported as an extension of FreeMind, a popular mind mapping tool. In this way, refactoring operations are intuitively conducted as actions upon mind map nodes. In a refactoring session a user imports the wiki structure as a FreeMind map; next, conducts the refactoring operations on the map, and finally, the effects are saved in the wiki database. The operational semantics of the WikiWhirl operations follow refactoring good practices (e.g., authorship preservation). Results from a controlled experiment suggest that WikiWhirl outperforms MediaWiki in three main affordance enablers: understandability, productivity and fulfillment of refactoring good practices.

Section: Enterprise Information Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refactoring affordances in corporate wikis: a case for the use of mind maps

Enterprise Information Systems

Azanza

2013

Self Cite

“…First, the operation is natively supported by most wiki engines (e.g., create, categorize). Second, the operation as such is not supported but documented as part of Wikipedia's good practices (e.g., merge, split ) 5 . The table shows the expected frequency and productivity gains.…”

Section: A Refactoring Sessionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main differences with our work are: (i) they represent the semantic relationships and not the wiki structure (i.e., hierarchy of categories and articles), and (ii) their aim is the visual navigation and exploration whereas our is wiki refactoring. As for wiki management, in a previous work [5], we also resorted to FreeMind as a convenient means to engage users for wiki scaffolding. The aim was to depict a blueprint of the wiki as a mind map, and next, generate the wiki installation.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wiki Refactoring as Mind Map Reshaping

Notes on Numerical Fluid Mechanics and Multidisciplinary Design

2012

Self Cite

Wikis' organic growth inevitably leads to wiki degradation and the need for regular wiki refactoring. So far, wiki refactoring is a manual, time-consuming and error-prone activity. We strive to ease wiki refactoring by using mind maps as a graphical representation of the wiki structure, and mind map manipulations as a way to express refactoring. This paper (i) defines the semantics of common refactoring operations based on Wikipedia best practices, (ii) advocates for the use of mind maps as a visualization of wikis for refactoring, and (iii) introduces a DSL for wiki refactoring built on top of FreeMind, a mind mapping tool. Thus, wikis are depicted as FreeMind maps, and map manipulations are interpreted as refactoring operations over the wiki. The rationales for the use of a DSL are based not only on reliability grounds but also on facilitating end-user participation.

“…Table 1 summarizes the mappings from WSL abstract concepts to FreeMind graphical notation, and outlines how the WSL engine maps FreeMind maps into MediaWiki constructs. A detailed description of WSL mappings can be found at [6]. Glossary.…”

Section: Popularitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Now, this central topic is "Wiki Scaffolding", and mind maps constructs are reinterpreted to denote scaffolding concerns. In a previous work [6], we introduced the Wiki Scaffolding Language (WSL) (pronounced "whistle"). WSL is built on top of FreeMind [1], a popular, open source tool to create mind maps.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wiki scaffolding

Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

2011

Self Cite

Organizational wikis are framed by an existing organization. This makes these wikis be especially vigilant upon (1) facilitating the alignment of the wiki with organizational practices, (2) engaging management or (3), promoting employees' participation. To this end, we advocate for the use of "wiki scaffoldings". A wiki scaffolding is a wiki installation that is provided at the onset, before any contribution is made. It aims to frame wiki contribution along the concerns already known in the hosting organization in terms of glossaries, schedules, organigrams and the like. Thus, wiki contributions do not start from scratch but within a known setting. This paper introduces a language to capture wiki scaffolding in terms of FreeMind's mind maps. These maps can later be mapped into wiki installations in MediaWiki. The paper seeks to validate the approach in a twofold manner. Firstly, by providing literature quotes that suggest the need for scaffolding. Secondly, by providing scaffolding examples for wikis reported in the literature. The findings suggest that wiki scaffolding can be useful to smoothly align wiki activity along the practices of the hosting organization from the onset.