Writely

Posted December 9th, 2005 by Bryan Alexander, Center for Educational Technology, NITLE

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The slow rise of wikis as popular authoring tools produced a series of commercial ventures, such as SocialText. Recently a new group of Web 2.0-oriented, wiki-like services has appeared. Writely is a good example of these. It offers an easy-to-access, clean-looking, collaborative writing space, much like JotSpot Live and Writeboard. Users can quickly set up a web page focused on a single document.

Unlike most wiki implementations, and contrary to the old wiki ethos, Writely excludes all potential editors, save those invited by the creator via email. Editing is advanced wiki, including multiple versions and rollback. Contributors are identifiable, unlike most wikis. Menus aren't intrusive, but drop down through AJAX.

From an information services support perspective, Writely has several advantages. As a hosted site it looks relatively noncommercial. For backup and migration purposes, Writely exports content into several formats, including HTML and Word. In terms of training, the creation and content editing window is a clear, simple WYSIWYG, easier to get into and more recognizable for non-specialists than many wiki implementations. Writely can ingest uploaded documents in common formats, such as Word.

Disadvantages are fairly evident. Like most Web 2.0 products, it's in beta. As with any externally-hosted service, academic users are at the mercy of someone else's business decisions. For Mac users, Safari has issues, and may not be supported. Overall, however, the ease of use and good export renders Writely worth the experiment.

http://www.writely.com/

How to cite this work

Bryan Alexander. "Writely." Academic Commons Issue Name (Spring 2008): 14 March 2010. <http://www.academiccommons.org/>.

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About the Author

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Bryan Alexander

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Bryan Alexander is Director for Emerging Technologies at NITLE, where he researches and develops programs on the advanced uses of information technology in liberal arts colleges. His specialties include digital writing, weblogs, copyright and intellectual property, information literacy, wireless culture and teaching, project management, information design, and interdisciplinary collaboration. He maintains and contributes to a series of weblogs, including NITLE Tech News and Smartmobs, when not creating digital learning objects. A PhD graduate of the University of Michigan, he has also taught English and information technology studies at Centenary College.

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Academic Commons is a community of faculty, academic technologists, librarians, administrators, and other academic professionals interested in two interlocking questions: how do creative uses of new technology and networked information support the current project of liberal education, and, perhaps more interestingly, how do they force us to re-think what it means to be liberally educated? Learn more.

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