DDWiki
From DDL Wiki
This page provides an overview of DDWiki and introduces how to use it.
The Design Decisions Wiki (DDWiki) was established by the Design Decisions Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 as a central resource for sharing information about design and tools to analyze and support decision-making.
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What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a type of Web site that allows users to easily add, remove, edit and change content. Wiki pages can be quickly and easily edited by any user, and so the wiki enables collaborative authoring and distributed, democratic management of content. You can become a user simply by logging in - just type in your full name and make up a password. The most popular wiki website is Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia writen and edited by its users. DDWiki uses the same MediaWiki software as Wikipedia, and so it appears and functions similarly to Wikipedia.
Accuracy
Because content management is distributed with no formal review process, it is not possible to guarantee accuracy of content; however, experience shows that users tend to take pride in the accuracy of their entries and in correcting inaccuracies they find. For example, an article in the journal Nature reported in 2005 that science articles in Wikipedia were comparable in accuracy to those in Encyclopædia Britannica (see Wikipedia article). Because it is known that entries can be changed by any user, authors tend to migrate toward balanced descriptions of controversial topics that will not prompt others to revert or revise the entry.
Copyright Issues
DDWiki follows Wikipedia copyright rules: Content is licensed to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). This means that content can be copied, modified and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies the author credit requirement).
Since Wikipedia follows these same copyright rules, it is acceptable to copy a Wikipedia article into DDWiki as a starting point to creating a new article, as long as the Wikipedia article is referenced.
For Whom is DDWiki Intended?
DDWiki is intended for researchers, educators, students and practitioners in a broad range of areas related to design and/or decision-making. Any individual who identifies their work with these areas is welcome to use and contribute to the wiki. DDWiki has been created independently from the popular Wikipedia website so that entries can be made with content and focus specific to the needs and interests of our community, and so that information on relevant people, groups, organizations, new research results and community debates can be included.
How Does One Use DDWiki?
Finding Information
An index of all DDWiki pages can be found here; however, for most purposes the user can simply type the topic of interest into the search box on the left bar.
Creating an Account
You can create an account simply by going to the log in page, typing in your user name (full first and last name preferred - spaces are okay), and making up a password. You will need to log in before you will be allowed to edit articles.
Editing an Existing Page
Any user can edit any page by clicking the "edit" tab above the page. The editing language, which is exactly like Wikipedia, is relatively simple and straightforward, primarily using text with a few symbols to indicate headings, bold items, hyperlinks, etc. For more information, see help on editing. DDWiki also has established notation conventions for mathematical equations to encourage consistency. Please follow these conventions where possible in your editing.
Creating a New Page
You can create a new page by first searching for the page (using the "Go" button). If the content already exists, you can edit the existing page. If the content does not exist, you will be given the option to create the page. New pages should be created using all lower case letters unless the topic is a proper noun or acronym. This will make linking easier, since the wiki is case sensitive.
Categories
You can create a new category or add a page to an existing category by including the text [[category:name of category]] in an existing wiki page. A list of existing categories can be found here.
