AKO tests new wiki capability

A new feature on the Army's enterprise portal will make collaboration significantly more effective. The Army Knowledge Online/Defense Knowledge Online Project Office Aug. 19 officially launched a pilot program for wiki - a feature facilitating the perpetual, collective work of many authors within the AKO community.

Wiki is a collaborative web environment allowing AKO/DKO users on the unclassified portal to post information of interest to other users while capturing change history for posted topics. The site is similar to a blog in structure and logic, however-unlike blogs-the wiki will allow others to edit originally posted materials.

"With AKO/DKO wiki, users can post, track and capture edits, enabling them with the ability to assure the authenticity of their topical information," said Col. Earl Noble, AKO/DKO project manager.

AKO core users-army users with common access cards-will have access during the evaluation period to a collaborative web environment featuring editable pages with versioning and access controls, the ability to link chains of documents together, document
storage and sharing capabilities, the ability to capture change data, cross-linking on the fly, enhanced security and governance, and more.

"This represents the capabilities AKO/DKO offers in a secure environment that enable collaborative knowledge sharing to the Warfighter and support structures," said Noble.

The term wiki, which comes from the Hawaiian language, means "fast," and refers to either the Web site or the software used to create the site. Wiki adds to the collaborative tools already present on AKO, and draws on the wealth of information held by its users.
"This is another example of AKO/DKO's commitment to provide users with relevant capabilities to meet tomorrow's information needs," said Noble.

"One of the challenges faced by AKO users is locating the right document. Wiki brings with it the capability to search document text, rather than just meta data," said Noble. "This further assures the user will be able to find the right document with the right information."
During limited user testing, the Clearspace software platform will be evaluated on the Army's unclassified portal. A similar solution, Intelepedia, will be tested on the smaller classified network.