How do you document e-Learning development processes in your organization? Does everyone have easy access to the most current version of your documentation? How are people notified of updates? What happens when the documentation has a mistake?
Documenting course design and development processes with a wiki can alleviate a number of issues common to more static forms of documentation. Our team uses Wikispaces, an open source wiki with low-cost upgrades that give us privacy.
How do you use Wikispaces for process documentation? First, decide whether you will let your wiki structure grow organically or whether you will scaffold it with a hierarchy. If you already have documentation in other formats, you likely already have some ideas about organization. If you're starting from scratch or developing new processes, it may be best to avoid restricting the content organization too much, relying instead on tagging and links. Tagging pages lets you find and group similar content regardless of the organization or hierarchy.
Who's in charge?
While traditional documentation methods may require a single person to control the content, a wiki distributes responsibility among everyone in the team. Wikispaces gives you options for roles and permissions. Collaborative documentation works best if everyone has permission to edit so everyone shares ownership in the documentation. A wiki lowers the barrier to adding what you know, so each person can share even small tips and insights without having to jump through bureaucratic hurdles.
But what happens if someone makes a mistake in the documentation? The good news is that now you can identify the confusion or disagreement and deal with it. Without the wiki, that confusion or disagreement would still be present, it would just be hidden. One way to handle errors is to use the discussion tab available on each page. The discussion tab gives you a space for conversations separated somewhat from the actual content. Automatic notifications of changes via e-mail or RSS can let everyone know when updates are made and help you identify and correct mistakes quickly.
Adapt for your situation
When we started our wiki, we were a brand new team with essentially no existing processes. What if you already have a significant amount of documentation and established processes? With well-defined processes, two different approaches to using a wiki are possible. The first is to start small and just add one segment of the documentation. This might be a good choice if you have a new process where the documentation will change often. For example, during a transition to a new LMS, all documentation related to the new system could be on the wiki, gradually phasing out your old documentation for the old system. One drawback of this approach is that it splits your information in multiple places, which may be confusing when you're searching for an answer.
Another approach is to transfer all your existing documentation at once. This has the advantage of collecting everything in one place. If one of your current documentation issues is finding content in multiple locations, this can be a driver for using the wiki. One drawback is that this can be a much larger project to implement, requiring a more significant initial time commitment.
Our team is small, so it makes sense for everyone to have full permissions and to contribute anywhere we can help. If your team is larger, having everyone work on everything may not be the most effective approach. Although the free wikis don't offer this feature, Wikispaces offers several upgraded plans that allow custom permissions for different roles. A Private Label wiki allows your organization to have unlimited subdomains with separate permissions, so you could have a wiki for your managers or Flash developers separate from the space for your instructional designers. Even if you don't lock it down with permissions, assigning different people to maintain specific parts of the site can help divide the responsibility into more manageable amounts of work. Your Captivate guru can be in charge of application tips and tricks, while your editor maintains a writing style guide.
Regardless of the size of your team, adding content isn't the only way for people to contribute. Cleaning up formatting or typos is a valuable contribution, as is tagging or adding links to content to make it easier to find.
Conclusion
If your current e-Learning process documentation is challenging to use and update, consider using a wiki tool like Wikispaces. A wiki can be a dynamic, collaborative space that provides the most current information and lets everyone contribute.
