Facilitating Collaboration in Wikis

Wikis are widely used in higher education, because they are said to stimulate collaborative writing and learning. But using a collaborative tool does not necessarily result in collaboration. Although wikis are not a new phenomenon, educators are still struggling to facilitate collaboration within wikis. This article reports from an action research project that examined the influence of task assignment and grading on collaboration. For this purpose, the task assignment and grading of a Master programme module were altered within three iterations. Collaboration was evaluated using social network analysis and content analysis. As a result, a learning arrangement is presented that facilitates collaborative learning and introduces and approach to the assessment of collaboration that takes group achievement into account but does not invite social loafing.