19. Using the Course Wiki

Some courses include a wiki, which provides a public forum for both students and the course team to access, share, and collaboratively edit information about the course. If your course includes a wiki, you access it by selecting the Wiki tab at the top of any page. (If your course does not include a wiki, this tab is not present.)

The instructional team for your course might use the wiki for the following purposes, among others.

  • Sharing answers to course FAQs and collecting new FAQs.
  • Sharing editable course information, such as download and installation instructions for software required for the course.
  • Allowing students to create and share resources, perhaps as part of a collaborative exercise.
  • Sharing errors and corrections for the course.
  • Collecting suggestions for future runs of the course.

As a student, you can perform the following tasks, depending on the permissions that are set for the wiki.

This section describes how you can contribute to the course wiki.

19.1. Adding a Wiki Article

When you add an article to the wiki, be aware of what level you are currently viewing, to make sure that you add your new article to the correct level in the course wiki.

To move down a level in the wiki, select See all children; to move up, select the appropriate level in the wiki breadcrumb trail links at the top of the page.

19.1.1. Add Articles at the Same Level

To add a wiki article at your current level, follow these steps. If you do not have permissions to add an article, when you select Add Article, a message indicates “Permission Denied” .

  1. In your course, select Wiki.
  2. Navigate to the level where you want to add a new article.
  3. Select the Add Article button near the top right of the page.
  4. On the new article page, add a title for the page, and optionally a few keywords to create a “slug” that provides a more specific location identifier for your article.
  5. Add contents to the article. You can enter plain text and use Markdown syntax to add formatting. For help with Markdown syntax, select the link to the cheat sheet at the upper right corner of the Contents field.
  6. When you have finished entering content for your wiki article, select Create Article.

19.1.2. Add Articles Below the Current Level

To add a child article to your current article, follow these steps. If you do not have permissions to add an article, when you select Add Article, a message indicates “Permission Denied” .

  1. In your course, select Wiki.
  2. Navigate to the level above where you want to add the new child article.
  3. Select See all children.
  4. Select the Add Article button under the wiki title.
  5. On the new article page, add a title for the page, and optionally a few keywords to create a “slug” that provides a more specific location identifier for your article.
  6. Add contents to the article. You can enter plain text and use Markdown syntax to add formatting. For help with Markdown syntax, select the link to the cheat sheet at the upper right corner of the Contents field.
  7. When you have finished entering content for your wiki article, select Create Article.

19.2. Editing a Wiki Article

If you have permissions to edit an article, you see an Edit button and icon to the right of the article content.

To make changes to a wiki article, follow these steps.

  1. In your course, select Wiki.
  2. Navigate to the article you want to edit.
  3. Select Edit.
  4. Make your changes. For help with Markdown syntax, select the link to the cheat sheet at the upper right corner of the Contents field.
  5. In the Summary field at the bottom left, below the Contents field, enter a short description of the changes you made. This description appears in the Changes list, and helps other users of the wiki understand what changes you made to the article.
  6. When you have finished making edits, select Save changes.

19.3. Searching for Wiki Articles

A Filter field is available only if any level of the wiki contains multiple articles.

Enter a text string in the Filter field to find a list of all articles with that text string in their titles.

19.4. Managing Versions of Wiki Articles

The wiki includes a change history for each article. You can view each past version of the article, roll back to a selected earlier version of the article, or merge the current version of the article with a selected earlier version.

19.4.1. View a List of Previous Versions of a Wiki Article

  1. In your course, select Wiki.
  2. Navigate to the wiki article for which you want to see the change history.
  3. Select Changes. Previously saved versions of the current article are listed, with the most recent at the top.

19.4.2. View a Previous Version of a Wiki Article

  1. On the Changes page for your wiki, select the revision of the article that you want to view.
  2. Select Preview this revision to see the article as it appeared after the revision was made.

19.4.3. See Line by Line Changes in a Previous Version

  1. On the Changes page for your wiki, select the revision of the article that you want to view.
  2. Select the linked date, time, and author information to see the line-by-line changes made in that revision. Text that is highlighted in red has been replaced by the text that is highlighted in green below it.

19.4.4. Replace a Current Version with a Previous Version

  1. On the Changes page for your wiki, select the revision of the article that you want to roll back to.
  2. Select Switch to selected version to replace the current version with the selected one.

19.4.5. Combine a Current Version with a Previous Version

  1. On the Changes page for your wiki, select the revision of the article that you want to merge with the current version.
  2. Select Merge selected with current to combine the current and the selected versions.

The wiki for each course is a “child” wiki of the edX-wide wiki. From within any course wiki, selecting the top level Wiki link in the breadcrumb trail in the upper-left corner of the page takes you to the edX-wide wiki. To get back to your course wiki, select the Wiki tab at the top of the page.