Officially launched in 2006, Wikiversity is a community devoted to collaborative learning. It helps build learning resources from the ground up and also links to existing internet resources. Wikiversity uses wiki software, which makes collaboration easy. Wikiversity participants are continually improving the educational content of Wikiversity's pages. Wikiversity supports several languages and learner levels.

I am exploring the use of Wikiversity as a tool for collaborative participation and knowledge creation by students as part of a course project requirement. I came across a medical college that made use of Wikiversity for a group assignment (Singh, 2013).

Below is the link to the page that helps track different versions of the report along with the names of the contributors. This increases the accountability of participants.

https://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Shock&action=history

I explored the tool using the ‘guided tours’ provided. I also looked at a few presentations and projects created.

Key steps identified for a collaborative project development using Wikiversity:

1) Create an account: Having an account with a user name helps track the contribution of team members.
2) Creating a new page for a project using ‘Create’ option in our user profile page.
3) Editing pages using an edit toolbar at the top of the edit window. The toolbar provides one-click access to 14 common editing tasks such as creating bold text.
4) Structuring the page: Creating a structure for the project may be helpful (a set of key points to cover in the project). The Wikiversity gives a blank page to start with. And we should have a structure in mind to create an effective project.
5) Collaborate: Due to the multiple user possibility of wikis and the ability to have a history and differences to highlight new changes, users are able to write in collaboration.
6) References: Including a set of references helps enhance the reliability of the data.
7) Creating a project: A project will have more than one pages on Wikiversity. Every project starts as a simple single page. It grows into a connected collection of pages over time.
8) Repurposing: Unlike a non-wiki webpage, non-project participants can find the resources you have left behind. Rather than reinventing the wheel, they may re-purpose the existing resources to save themselves time. During the process of repurposing, it is likely that the universality (wider usefulness) of the resource may increase by a small, perhaps almost insignificant amount. But in the long run, the resource will incrementally become more valuable and of more universal appeal.
9) Use of Wikiversity: As explained on the website ‘You don't have to apply or register anywhere. If you are a teacher, you can simply go ahead without any further permission and create a learning project.’

Wikiversity helps bring teachers and students together and helps enhance collaborative intelligence and knowledge creation. It also aids ubiquitous learning and active knowledge making. As explained by the website: ‘Wikipedia has articles, Wikibooks has books, and Wikiversity has learning projects.’

References:

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Help:The_original_tour_for_newcomers/1

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Learning_projects

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/wikimania2007/8/81/CL1-Lawler-Learning_and_learning_about_learning_in_Wikiversity.pdf

Singh, Satendra. "Use of wikiversity and role play to increase student engagement during student-led physiology seminars." Advances in physiology education 37.1 (2013): 106-107.