I'm trying to get my thoughts together to respond to the great thread that Matt Barton, et al., started on the problem of assessing student writing in wikis. But I just stumbled across this article in the last issue of The Chronicle, and I thought I'd pass it on here. Unfortunately, The Chronicle is password protected, but maybe you know a way around that:

http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i45/45a03501.htm

I think it's significant for several reasons, but I would note that it's fortuitous that one of the first articles to appear on wikis in The Chronicle discusses how teachers are using wikis in terms of teaching writing/literature.

Also interesting is the fact that Phillipson, the instructor using wikis at Bowdoin, does not allow any student the power to remove another student's writing. His site is here:

http://ssad.bowdoin.edu:8668/space/snipsnap-index

I've been to his site before, but I don't know if he's recently upgraded the software. He's using a java-based wiki/blog snip-snap (new to me) software package which is new to me. But the more I look at this site, the more it looks like a blog and not a wiki to me? What do you think?

Also, The Chronicle has a discussion board about this:

http://chronicle.com/forums/colloquy/read.php?f=1&i=5228&t=5228