Chris's dashboard

This problem is why I'm not using PBWiki. Even if the wiki I'm using right now doesn't have preformatted text, I'm still not using PBWiki. It's better for the users when there's annonymous logins. That's what a wiki is about.

The "guest" email and password can simply be published in the "this will be seen on the logon page" textbox of the pbwiki settings, so no-one has to remember it.

Annoyingly this does require us (pbwiki creators) to go to an outside system and create a completely separate email address to deal with the new constraints that have been added to the pbwiki login system, instead of having an option within pbwiki to add a guest login.

This is harder to use, with fewer editing options, and less access than a regular website. I like the idea of using a name and a password. Kids can remebr their names but a fake e-mail address and a password is way too much for any reasonable person to ask.

Hello! You can create a generic email address and give it access to your wiki. Then your users can use that email to sign in. Would that work for you? – Rachel Pennig, on May 28, 2008 23:47

Shoot - if there is no way around this then it is a problem for my whole idea of the advantages a wiki is supposed to provide.

I may have picked another provider if I had known this - now it may be too late.

As everyone knows, these days, people are just so concerned about providing email addresses...

Login and passwords need to reflect ease, security, and anonymity. My students do not have email accounts they can use for school projects. I can't use their names. I have 70 students in grades 5-8 for which the wiki is a fantastic forum.

However, I need to know who is on and who is editing what.

I need to restrict certain pages (locked is nice).

I see a "page-level" access in 2.0, but I don't know what that means.

I'm thinking it would be nice for students to be able to create their individual pages which are locked except for their password. Some pages would be locked, others are for collaboration.

I just created a whole site in 2.0 (silver), not realizing that each person had to login (and they don't have emails) and that I can't control the level of use.

I thought at first that I could have editors, moderators, writers, and page-level only passwords. Oops, I blew that one. Copy and paste to 1.0, I guess, although the new folders and page security is great !

A way I've heard other wikis use, is the teacher sends in student names and passwords which are set up for the site by the wiki admins.

I see why 2.0 went to PB Identities, but I need more control over the students' use, instead of giving them PB access like adults have -- the PB identity page invites them to create their own, add other wikis, etc. I wish the world were a nice place, so open and free. But I've must provide a more in-house solution. The techy kids will still go off on their own -- but not on my watch.

I noticed one discussion mentioned something like adding student names to their emails? like teacher+student@gmail.com Is that possible? I wouldn't use the students' names, but I could use their class code. I would not suggest using any "official" student number.

So: easy to set-up student usernames (not real) and passwords; still need differing access levels; would like page level access code for certain pages to prevent others from editing their final work.

Thanks. Sheri

I think having an optional blanket key of some sort that can be distributed and will work for multiple people would be very helpful. Most of the wikis that I've been asked to participate in are group based. We send out the link to it to a mailing list. For very small wikis there is less worry about vandalism than larger ones; in fact we've posted the 1.0 password to the wiki on the front page of the wiki and haven't had any problems.

(I'm not an educator, but I wanted to answer the question too)

I think that one of the best solutions is to have invite key with a name. A teacher will give out invite key then a student can login using his first name + teacher name

Lrosen, Our engineers are currently scoping out several possible 2.0 login fixes for educators and those who want public involvement with their wiki. As you can see there are a lot of different issues and we want to make sure that the decision we make will fix all of them. We're actively working to fix this situation for you but until we have the answer, the best advice I can give is to continue using PBwiki 1.0. Kristine – KrissyMo, on April 23, 2008 19:01

I agree with bringing back the invite key. I do workshops and don't have the participant names ahead of time.

In another role, I work with elementary and secondary classroom teachers. Their students don't have email addresses so they need a way to login with an invite key and their name. As far as abuse, we're looking for good/appropriate content and if a person's name does not have such content connected to his/her name, they don't get the grade. If inappropriate content is placed in there, it is removed and students are reminded of the rules. Then we move on to focusing on the content that will be assessed. We don't focus on who did it as that isn't an exercise worth class time, IMO. If the behavior were to get out of hand we would put an end to the use of the wiki. Students enjoy the opportunity to work in a wiki enough that this hasn't happened yet but they know it is out there as a possibility.

The other set of people I have are the non-editors, the community such as parents and school administrators. For them the wiki needs to be private so student material isn't viewable by the world without some sort of permission or login. But I do want them to have access to seeing what students know and are able to do. This is their opportunity to get involved even those who are working and don't have a chance to spend time in the classroom and know what the kids are learning.

I think an invite key works for this as well. If it isn't resolved soon I would like to know how to transfer my content to 1.0. Meanwhile, I may be looking for a new wiki solution.

This discussion started a month ago. PBWiki, where are you in making a change?

I would like to see individual user names and passwords. This allows me to track what each and every student does on the wiki.

How about an update from the pbwiki tech people and staff about where internal pbwiki discussions have led? Have you developed anything to resolve this issue yet?

In my case, I lean toward the invite key solution because I work with adult immigrant English language learners and I just want them to be able to work on the collaborative pages I've set up for them without having to jump through too many hoops. I don't really have to worry about malicious postings with my population but I do occasionally have to deal with students erasing things inadvertantly and being able to revert to a prior version has solved that issue for me. Many of out students don't have email addresses (nor computers for that matter) so an email-based system is not viable for them.

Seems to me that the proposed solution allowing the wiki creator to choose between an email log in and an invite key at the time of wiki creation is really the best direction to take if technically doable. As for the issue of users being confused when visiting wikis with different systems, the log-page could just state "The creator of this wiki chose an email-based log-in system" or "The creator of this wiki chose an "invite-key" based system" as appropriate. This wording would imply that there are other systems in use so that when new users visit a wiki with the other type of system, they would be a bit more prepared for that eventuality.

While I was considering moving to version 2 of pbwiki, I don't think I will be able to do so until this issue is resolved. I also train and introduce wikis to other teachers in my division who have similar student populations so I think I'll have to recommend to them to stay with 1.0 as well.

I teach 8th grade in a middle school. It is really important to me to know EXACTLY who is doing what. Logins and passwords limit students using the space to destroy another's work or use the space for cyberbullying or other inappropriate activities. The first day my students logged into a blog that I had created, there were inappropriate entries. Maybe the rest of the world has students that would not do this, but I don't. When I created my wiki it used a gmail account. Each student was assigned an email address that was mine+their name (science+tim@gmail.com). I then responded to each of these by entering a password for each student. This was terribly time consuming!

Hi MathCoach - We're actively reviewing your responses and looking at ways to solve this. I can't give you a date or deadline, but this is a prime concern and we're working on it. Please stick with us a little longer :) We really appreciate all the thoughtful feedback we're getting. – Rachel Pennig, on April 16, 2008 16:46

Hi Elizabeth, you can still create a 1.0 wiki that will use an invite key, so please stick with PBwiki. We'll get this sorted out for 2.0 soon :) – Rachel Pennig, on April 16, 2008 16:45