The Coastal Wiki has already proven to be a successful platform for dissemination of knowledge. The supply of articles has exceeded the expectations and led to a demand for an increased level of quality control. RIKZ has provided additional budget to further streamline the Coastal Wiki and to increase the quality control of the system. The project includes the setup of an overall management system for the Coastal Wiki.
The coordinating institute of Encora, RIKZ, have offered to fund a streamlining activity, to take place from August to the end of Dec 2007, to assist with the overall management at this vital stage before the Wiki becomes too large and difficult to manage. The 10 theme leaders will remain in control of their respective section and the streamlining activities are entirely open for comment. The budget will be used to relieve some of the pressures on the theme leaders caused by the unexpected but welcome growth rate of the Wiki. The theme leaders are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to comment and to guide the streamlining activity to ensure that this activity has the best effect possible.
The following aspects will be considered for improvement in the streamlining activity:
• Consistency: Article format/ level of detail
• Links: internal/ external to the Coastal Wiki
• Balance: Science, practice, policy
• Topic coverage: Overlap (intra and inter theme) and omissions
• Publishing / Wiki/ Communication: Specialist advice is needed to make sure we are using the software to its full capability. Coastal Wiki is embedded in Wikimedia software, which gives the capability to highlight relationships, to reveal context and to guide the user in a simple and natural way through related topics.
It’s envisaged that by the end of 2007 the Coastal Wiki will be THE source of information regarding Integrated Coastal Zone Management for coastal professionals in Europe.
The Coastal Wiki can be considered as a dynamic state-of-the-art knowledge system that will be maintained and further developed by the users themselves. Currently there are some initiatives to support this concept in the future.
