Evaluating Wikis as a Communicative Medium for Collaboration Within Colocated and Distributed Engineering Design Teams
Name
Evaluating wikis.pdf
Size
2.42 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b0708e3a8f418079bacc80c503e6942d
Author(s)
Walthall, Carolynn J.
Devanathan, Srikanth
Kisselburgh, Lorraine G.
Ramani, Karthik
Hirleman, E. Daniel
Yang, Maria
Date Issued
July 2011
Journal
Journal of Mechanical Design
Publisher
ASME International
Citation
Walthall, Carolynn J.; Devanathan, Srikanth; Kisselburgh, Lorraine G.; Ramani, Karthik; Hirleman, E. Daniel and Yang, Maria C. “Evaluating Wikis as a Communicative Medium for Collaboration Within Colocated and Distributed Engineering Design Teams.” Journal of Mechanical Design 133, no. 7 (July 2011): 071001. © 2011 American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Wikis, freely editable collections of web pages, exhibit potential for a flexible documentation and communication tool for collaborative design tasks as well as support for team design thinking early in the design process. The purpose of this work is to analyze dimensions of wiki technologies from a communication perspective as applicable to design. A wiki was introduced in a globally distributed product development course, and the experiences and performance of colocated and distributed teams in the course were assessed through observations, surveys, and site usage analytics. With a focus on communication in design, we explore the advantages and disadvantages of using wikis in student engineering design teams. Our goal is to use wiki technologies to enhance support for design processes while exploiting the potential for increasing shared understanding among teams. Distributed teams used the wiki more as a design tool and were more supportive of its use in the course whereas colocated teams used it for documentation. The usage patterns, the number and type of files uploaded, and the wiki structure provided indicators of better performing teams. The findings also suggest ways to improve and inform students about best practices using the wiki for design and to transform the wiki as a support tool for communication during early design collaboration.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4004115
