Yes, that’s right: STOLEN. But in a good way. One that builds a vibrant community and strong participation on your wiki. Here’s how creator Dave Foord describes it: “Unfortunately many people set wikis up with the best intention for their students, only to find that they didn’t work, or didn’t achieve the desired learning outcomes.” He studied this, “to try and identify why some educational wikis worked, and what could be done to increase the chances for others in the future. The research lead to the creation of the STOLEN principle – 6 basic features each identified by the letters STOLEN, which if considered could increase the wikis chances of being successful.”

As soon as I read Foord’s six steps on the STOLEN principle wiki (which you can edit - excellent!), I noticed parallels to several wiki patterns.

Here are the steps and some patterns that can help you make each step happen:

Specific Overall Objective - Magnet, FAQ
Timely - Set Window of Discussion, Lunch Menu
Ownership - MySpace, BarnRaising, PageOwnership
Localised objective - StartingPoint, EmptyPages, Scaffold
Engagement rules - Invitation, Welcoming
Navigation - Automatic Index, Seed it with content, Too much structure

What patterns do you see in your wiki? Which ones have you used?

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• “Create an idea-sharing environment where incomplete can be linked together and from this, solutions emerge.” - From the book’s Foreword, by Ward Cunningham
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Related Posts:

• Why using a wiki instead of email or documents will multiply your collaboration effectiveness
• News Corporation, Dow Jones and wiki use in corporate boardrooms?
• APC’s 7 Strategies for Implementing a Successful Corporate Wiki
• Are Wiki patterns applicable to more than just wikis?
• North American writers suffer from “excessive verbiage & repetitive content” syndrome. Not this book, though.