Collaborative Data Modeling: 
Experience Using a Wiki 
Introductions 
Gordon Everest 

Have you struggled with how to facilitate the functioning of database design teams where the subject matter experts are geographically and temporally dispersed? Accepting the fact that data modeling is generally a team effort, the challenge is to provide effective collaboration tools for "virtual" teams. 

A Wiki is one possible collaborative development environment (CDE, as defined by Grady Booch). While a Wiki has some great advantages, we discovered that it also has some serious limitations.

This presentation describes the experience of using Wikis in a classroom environment in which the students were mostly professionals in a large metropolitan area. The logistics of face-to-face meetings were very difficult, hence the need for a collaboration tool, just as would be in an organizational setting.

Come and learn about the advantages of a Wiki, and the unexpected problems using a Wiki. This presentation will highlight some suggestions for what you can do to increase the effectiveness of Wikis for data modeling in virtual teams.

Brief overview and comparison of several collaboration mechanisms and tools, both old and new

• Fundamental Objectives and Characteristics of a Wiki environment
   **how do they fit the nature of a data modeling task?

• Educational vs. Business/Organizational setting

• Rationale and Conduct of the Data Modeling Assignment

• Resulting Observations and Outcomes
  **Advantages of using a Wiki - how it can help
  **Problems using a Wiki, and how to minimize those problems.

     
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