Moodle – Wiki

What does the Wiki activity do?

The wiki activity module in Moodle enables participants to add and edit a collection of web pages. A wiki is designed to be collaborative, with everyone being able to edit it, or individual, where everyone has their own wiki which only they can edit.

A history of previous versions of each page in the wiki is kept, listing the edits made by each participant.

Wikis have many uses, such as:

• For group lecture notes or study guides

• For members of a faculty to plan a scheme of work or meeting agenda together

• For students to collaboratively author an online book, creating content on a topic set by their tutor

• For collaborative storytelling or poetry creation, where each participant writes a line or verse

• As a personal journal for examination notes or revision (using an individual wiki)

Adding a Wiki

Step 1

Before you can make any changes to your Moodle site content you must first enable editing. To do this, click on the 'Edit mode' button located at the top right of the page.

Step 2

With editing enabled, you will see in each topic the following button:

Step 3

Click the Wiki icon from the list to add. You can find more information about Wikis by clicking "Explore this tool".

Step 4

You will now see the 'Adding a new Wiki' page, you will be required to give your Wiki a name and First page name here (this will be the name for the Wiki Home Page from which other pages can be linked). You can also add a description and expected time of study, but this is optional - the description will only display if you choose it to do so by clicking on "Display description on course page".

Note: Once the first page name is set - it cannot be changed after, so be careful!

The Wiki mode will also determine how the Wiki will be used/shared among students. It has the following two options:

• Collaborative wiki – all students see a single shared Wiki on which they can all add and edit pages

• Individual wiki – each student has their own Wiki which only they can see and edit

Options from the Format settings include Default format option and Force format, these are best left at their default settings (‘HTML’ and ‘unticked’ respectively).

Step 5

Further down the Adding a new Wiki page is another section called Common module settings. This section controls how groups are managed. Moodle allows you to create a single Wiki that can be split between groups. The Group mode settings include the following three options:

• No groups – all students can see all posts (default)

• Separate groups – students can only see posts from their own group

• Visible groups – students can see other groups’ posts, but can only reply to their own group’s posts.

The rest of the options on the Adding a new Wiki page can be left at their default settings.

Step 6

Click 'Save and display' to return to your Wiki

Step 7

You will then immediately be taken to creating the first page of the Wiki. Whilst it may look as if you can edit the New page title here, you actually cannot.

You can, however, change the Format here, although it is recommended that you leave it at the default of ‘HTML’.

When you are finished, click on Create page at the bottom of the page.

Step 8

You should then be taken to the first page where you can add/edit content in the HTML format text editor.

You can also assign Tags to the Wiki in order to make it searchable. However, this setting is rarely used and is best ignored unless you have a specific need for it.

When you are finished, click on Save at the bottom of the page.

Step 9

You should now see your Home Page displayed in the Wiki:

Step 10 - Additional Pages

Additional pages can be created and linked to from this wiki's homepage (and from any other page created in the Wiki). However, the procedure for creating additional pages is a little counter-intuitive and involves first creating the link to a new page, then creating the actual page itself.

To begin this process, click on the dropdown menu and select Edit at the top of the wiki page.

Step 11

To create a link to a new wiki page you need to enter the name of your new page (on the edit page) and most importantly you must add double squared brackets enclosing the name, e.g. [[New Page 1]] or [[New Page 2]]

The double squared brackets is a special Wiki syntax and denotes that the text contained within will be a link to a new page.

Please note – as before, the page name cannot be changed, so be sure to set it correctly here.

Once this has been done, click on Save at the bottom of the page.

You shall then be taken back to the wiki home page, which will now show the 'New page title' link. The link to a new page that has not yet been created will appear as blue linked text on the page.

Step 12

To make the actual page simply click on the blue page link, you will then be taken to the first step in creating another new Wiki page, as seen earlier. As before, the New page title cannot be edited at this point. Leave the format set to ‘HTML’ and then click on Create page. You will then be taken to an Editing this page screen, as before. Enter in the contents for this page, and when you are finished, click on Save at the bottom.

Step 13

The process of setting up new pages on a Wiki can be a little complicated - there is further guidance here on the Moodle help pages.