Basics of wikis

• A wiki is "A collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it." (Wiktionary definition, March 20, 2007).  A variety of wikis are available, the most popular being the Wikimedia software used on Wikipedia.
• An article page or mainspace page is for content (not chat). To edit, click on the "edit" tab and type away. Take a look at some pages to see how it's done. Write an edit summary in the box at the bottom, then click on "Save page". You should see the new version of the page immediately!
• A discussion page or talk page is associated with a particular mainspace page, and it is used to discuss the content of that page. You click the talk page edit tab, type in your comment, then sign your comment with four tildes, ~~~~ and click on "Save page".
• The article history saves every version of every page.
• Links can easily be made to [[internal article]]s as well as [http:chem.org external sites].
• Images are uploaded separately, and linked from the page as [[Image:ChemRxn.png]].

  Note: Editing information is given for the Wikimedia software; ACS wikis use a different system

Chemistry Resources on Wikipedia

• The Chemistry Portal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Chemistry
• WikiProjects coordinate activities of the chemistry community, e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemistry or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals
• These WikiProjects can also be reached by typing WP:Chemistry or WP:Chem into the Wikipedia search engine.
• Style guidelines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Style_guidelines

Citing an article from Wikipedia

• Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia, recommends that you do not use any encyclopedia as a primary reference source!
• As a secondary/tertiary source you may wish to cite Wikipedia.  Click on "Cite this article" on the left of the screen, choose the format, then copy and paste.

Educational resources

• WikEd: http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Main_Page

• Webquests: http://webquest.org/
• Ti Wiki (NZ Tertiary Education): http://wiki.tertiary.govt.nz/

Other wikis

• ACS Chicago meeting wiki: http://acschicago.chemistry.org/

• OpenWetWare is a site for the biology & biological engineering communities: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Main_Page