LATTE

Creating a Wiki

The "Wiki" activity in LATTE allows students and professors an easy way to create a collectively authored set of web documents. New pages can be added to a wiki and the content edited right in the browser window. LATTE’s wiki is easy to update and requires no knowledge of HTML or any other coding languages.

Quick Links

How to Create a Wiki
How to Add Content to a Wiki Page
How to Add Images to a Wiki Page
How to Add Pages to a Wiki Page
How to Edit Pages in a Wiki
How to Navigate in a Wiki

How to Create a Wiki

Step 1: From the course homepage, click the "Turn Editing On" button on the upper left-hand side of your course homepage.

Step 2: In the section of the course outline you want to add the questionnaire, click the down arrow next to the Add an Activity... option box.

Step 3: From the drop-down menu, select Wiki

Step 4: The Wiki settings page will open. Type a name for the wiki (and a description or summary if desired)

Step 5: Select the Type (under General settings) and the Group mode (under Common module settings).

Groups are an advanced feature of LATTE and must be set up in advance. These two settings interact with each other. In general you will use the "No groups" setting. Type settings will have the following effects:

• Groups: Creates one single wiki, which both instructor and students can view and edit.
• Student: Creates a separate wiki for each student, which only that student and the instructor can view and edit.
• Teacher: Creates one single wiki, which the students can view, but only the instructor can edit.

Note: Once you select a Type for your wiki (i.e. Groups, Student, or Teacher) you will not be able to alter this by editing the wiki, so choose carefully!

Step 6: Click Save and return to course or Save and display to complete the set up process.

Step 7: If, at any time, you wish to alter the wiki’s settings, click the Update this wiki button in the top of the wiki window:

This will take you back to the wiki’s setting page.

How to Add Content to a Wiki Page

Step 1: Display the wiki.

Step 2: The first time you enter your new wiki—before it has any content—you will be taken automatically to the editing window for your first page. If there is already content on the page, click on the Edit tab at the top of the Wiki window.

Step 3: Type some text into the entry box

Step 4: You can format the text in the same way that you format text elsewhere in LATTE. Feel free to experiment with the formatting; you can always change it later. That’s the beauty of a wiki.

Step 5: Once you have entered and formatted your text you can either click Save to apply the changes immediately, or you can click Preview.

Step 6: If you click Preview, LATTE will show you how the content will appear in the wiki and provide you with an edit window underneath the preview so that you can make any changes you feel are necessary.

Step 7: Continue to click Preview after each alteration, until you are satisfied with the contents.

Step 8: When you are done, click Save.

How to Add Images to a Wiki Page

Step 1: Display the wiki and navigate to the page you wish to edit.

Step 2: Click on the Edit tab at the top of the Wiki window to open the editing window

Step 3: Position the cursor where you want the image to appear and click the "Insert Image" button.

Step 4: In the Insert Image window, enter an image location in the “Image URL” box.

• Instructors may do this by navigating to and image in (or uploading an image into) the LATTE course files.
• Both instructors and participants may enter the URL of an image located online.

Step 5: Enter a brief description of the image in the “Alternate text” box.

Step 6: Click “OK” to return to the edit page. The image should appear.

Step 7: Click “Preview” and/or “Save” to view the image in the wiki page.

How to Add Pages to a Wiki

Step 1: Display the wiki.

Step 2: Click on the Edit tab at the top of the Wiki window to open the editing window.

Step 3: To create a new page you need to create text that will link to that page. The LATTE wiki will recognize one of two formats for creating internal links (that is, links that refer to other pages within the wiki itself).

• CamelCase: When you type two or more words concatenated (stuck all together) with the first letter of each word capitalized (e.g.. NewPage), the wiki recognizes this as a page title that should be linked. This is the easiest way to create links in the wiki, but it can be restrictive.

• [Bracketed text]: When you enclose certain text in square brackets “[]” (e.g. [this is bracketed text]) the wiki recognizes this as a page title that should be linked. This allows for less restrictive links, but remember that all of the text inside the brackets becomes the new page title, so keep it concise.

Step 4: If the page you’re linking to already exists, the wiki will simply make the text a hyperlink to that page. But we’re creating a new page so the text will have a little question mark beside it. Click on the question mark and you will be taken to a new edit window for the new page.

Step 5: Enter content on this new page and click Save (or Preview) and view your new page.

Step 6: If the link that you create could refer to page you have created in a different wiki in your course, LATTE will automatically link the text to that wiki page, but it will also give you the question mark. If you want to create a new page in the current wiki for this text to link to, click the question mark and create the new page as described above.

Step 7: If you know you will want to create a page, but don’t want to create and edit the content now, you can create the link but not click on the question mark. If you do this the question mark will remain and you can return to the page at a later date and click on it to create the new page. You can also find a list of “Wanted pages”, that is links without pages attached to them, by selecting Wanted pages from the Choose Wiki Links dropdown menu:

You can then click on the question mark by any of the page titles on the list to go to the editing window and create that page. When you are done, click Save and view your new page.

How to Edit Pages in a Wiki

Step 1: Display the wiki.

Step 2: Navigate to the page you wish to edit by:

• Clicking on a link to that page in the first page that appears
• Selecting Sitemap from the Choose Wiki Links dropdown at the top of the page, then clicking on the link to the page you wish to edit in the hierarchically organized list of your pages.
• Selecting Page Index from the Choose Wiki Links dropdown at the top of the page, then clicking on the link to the page you wish to edit in the alphabetically organized list of your pages.

Step 3: Click on the Edit tab at the top of the Wiki window to open the editing window.

Step 4: Type text in the entry box. You can format the text in the same way that you format text elsewhere in LATTE. Feel free to experiment with the formatting; you can always change it later. That’s the beauty of a wiki.

Step 5: Once you have entered and formatted your text click Save or Preview.

How to Navigate in a Wiki

Step 1: Display the wiki.

Step 2: You can navigate in a wiki by clicking on the links on each page. It is wise to have some sort of table of contents or overview with links to some of your main pages on the first page that is displayed. However, if you wiki has many pages it will be impractical to include links to them all on the front page.

Step 3: You can find your way to any page in the wiki using the Choose Wiki Links dropdown at the top of the page:

• Sitemap: displays a hierarchically organized list of your pages. Page titles will appear indented underneath the titles of the pages on which the original link was created.
• Page Index: displays an alphabetically organized list of your pages.
• Newest pages: displays a list of your pages organized chronologically from the most recently created to the least.
• Most visited pages: displays a list of your pages organized in descending order from the most often visited to the least.
• Most often changed pages: displays a list of your pages organized in descending order from the most often changed to the least.
• Updated pages: displays a list of your pages organized chronologically from the most recently edited to the least.
• Orphaned pages: displays a list of pages that are not linked TO from any other page. Unless you add links back to your front page in your other pages, it may turn up as an orphaned page.
• Wanted pages: displays a list of links without pages attached to them. For example if you type NewPage on one of your wiki pages and don’t click on the little question mark to make a new page attached to it, it will appear on the Wanted pages list.

Step 4: If you are unsure of the title of the page you’re looking for or if you just want to find pages with particular content you can use the Search Wiki box:

Just type in a search term and LATTE will give you a list of pages that match it.

If you have further questions about using the Questionnaire activity please contact LATTE Help at latte@brandeis.edu, x6LTTE (x65883) or 781-736-5883.