Until a few years ago, all the job aids and information at my work were paper copies that needed to be updated and handed out again at least on a monthly basis.
This was a very labor intensive process, and almost always resulted in someone who may not have been in the office the day the new information was provided holding on to outdated information.
Since I work at an online university, it only made sense to move to some sort of online knowledge database.
Enter Wikispaces. Our university's Admissions Office had used a wiki for about a year and a half before Student Advising (my department) decided to jump on the bandwagon.
As we implemented this new tool, there were several growing pains. First, we had to go through existing pages and make sure all of the information that was previously Admissions-focused was changed to be relevant for both departments. Next, we had to build pages with Student Advising-centric material. All of this was happening in tandem with the creation of the training department, of which I am now a part. I had to quickly re-learn HTML coding to make adjustments to pages, and figure out ways to create interactive tools to make Student Advisors' jobs easier.
Advisors were initially reluctant to let go of their physical resources. It took quite a while to get everyone on board, but once we did, they quickly discovered the usefulness of having information that could be updated in real time.
Earlier this year, senior leadership at my university decided to migrate the internal wiki from Wikispaces to our own system called Redmine in a cost-saving effort. The transition was painful, to say the least. Search terms were not as intuitive, there was no option to mark favorites for easy access, and a lot of the image-hosting ability was eliminated. We had finally created buy-in for the Wikispaces site, and now had an even larger hill to climb to create more buy-in on an inferior hosting site.
Ultimately, however, the benefits of using the knowledge base outweighed the negatives of it being uploaded into Redmine, and the department embraced it once again.
What does this tell us about the pros and cons of using a wiki in an adult learning environment?
First, ultimately, we created a space where thoughts could be "revisited, reused, and repurposed" (King & Cox, 2011). The use of a wiki kept people informed and equipped to handle situations with accurate information at their fingertips.
A community of practice was built, and while our wiki wasn't necessarily collaborative - only certain users can edit pages - we did ask for near constant feedback. When someone provided a tool to me, I would review it for "wiki-ability" and see if I could share the tool via the wiki for everyone to utilize. This prevents some of the security concerns such as a collective bias or inaccurate information being uploaded.
However, despite the careful construction of information, there was always the chance people could interpret information inaccurately. "Learns construct personal interpretation of knowledge based on their previous experience and application of knowledge in relevant context" (Hazari & Moreland, 2009).
On top of that, several tenured employees were not comfortable with the technology and are still reluctant to use the information housed in the wiki. While "technology can only be effective in the learning process when it meets learning requirements," people also must be willing to implement the technology to help them learn and grow.
The biggest issue I've seen is the lack of retention of information, because people know they can always find what they need on the wiki. I am all for utilizing resources, but it's also good to know and understand policy and apply it immediately.
Despite any downsides to using wiki pages for adult learners, they are ultimately practical, political, and timely (King & Cox, 2011).
Resources:
Hazari, S., North, A., & Moreland, D. (2009). Investigating pedagogical value of Wiki technology. Journal of information systems education. 20(2). 187-198.
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteYour real life example of transitioning through different wiki hosts sounded incredibly painful. The fact that you were transitioning so much at the same time just sounds like things weren't planned well. Despite all of that, the fact that you see that the pros outweigh the cons is impressive and speaks volumes to how useful wikis can be.
In reading this past week about the different acceptance models of technology it seems that your university didn't pay much attention to any of the theories of technology acceptance. Perhaps they would have been a bit less drastic in the amount and timing of their changes had they considered the buy-in of the staff in the process.
This is an amazing amount of shift, even for an online university! Your description of all the change management and implementation work you had to do was impressive. As someone who would dearly love to get rid of "paper" resources, I have yet to find a good way to do so, in my personal or professional life. There's something about being about to touch that resource that I can't quite get completely away from. Must be the reason I still buy physical books even though I also use the Kindle app.
ReplyDeleteWould love to hear more about how you organized your community of practice, how you communicated within the group, and whether you were able to create advocates within the group to help bring others on board. Nice selection of quote from King & Cox about practical, political and timely features of a wiki. This clearly illustrates their point.
I can relate to your advisors who were “reluctant to let go of their physical resources.” Ironically, I just finished printing out our college telephone directory, which is readily available online. Some habits die hard, and I still like to have hard copies at my fingertips. I also agree with your assertion that technology has a role to play in lack of information retention. Simple case in point- smart phones remember all the phone numbers for us. My mom (who is 86) refuses to use the address book in her cell phone, because she finds that having to recall the phone numbers is good for her brain. I agree.
ReplyDeleteYou and me both with the printouts- it's literally faster for me to look at an important printed doc then find where it is online or where I've "filed" it. About the phone number issue- it is a bit frightening that if I am asked for my mother's number I have to go to my phone. If the cloud where my info is backed up ever goes haywire, I'm in trouble... until I Google her and find it that way, as well as her address...etc.
DeleteFrom a Master's student perspective, it is dismaying to me that I have spent so many pages and ink printing journal articles. I have yet to find a really great way to organize them online, though I have heard there are some applications out there. Stacks of paper... highlighted and tabbed. I"m going to need another file cabinet (who has those any more?) just to keep all the articles.
LeadingJourney -
DeletePrinting journal articles! I will be eternally grateful for my ability to print them out at work.
LeadingJourney -
DeletePrinting journal articles! I will be eternally grateful for my ability to print them out at work.