New pages

Preknowledge

This section of the tutorial provides an overview of a few concepts and approaches to creating links and pages in WikiEducator. We recommend that you read this overview before proceeding with the actual wiki syntax, which is covered in the remaining sections of this tutorial.

The Structure of the Wiki

You should think of a Wiki as a collection of individual pages. These pages can be linked with each other in different ways.

Wikis often display a type of flat organisational structure, without much hierarchy existing between pages. Hyperlinks connect one page to another, and content can tend to emerge in a rather organic fashion. While this can suit much of the content on the site, it may sometimes be desirable to group pages along a more hierarchical structure, where sets of pages are viewed as siblings of others. For the most part, the flat structure is sufficient, but we will explore how to create hierarchical structures in Tutorial 10, as this may be of benefit when creating educational resources.

Deciphering the language of links and pages

The differences between links and pages can be confusing. Therefore before we start with the tutorial, let's consider the basic concepts that will be used.

Key points

It can be useful to think about the things you might want to do in relation to pages and links: Creating an internal link between existing pages, for instance creating a link on Page A to Page B, where both pages already exist in the wiki; Creating an internal link to a new page, for instance creating a link on Page A to Page C, which must still be created in the wiki; Creating a link from a page in the wiki to another website, which we call an external link, for instance linking Page A to the home page of your organisation. Deciding which words, letters or concepts you would like to display to the user as the hyperlink text. That is the text which appears as a blue link in the browser. For instance you may want to display your full name as a link to your User Page, which uses an abbreviated form of your name. The link "Mary Brown" may go to a User page called "sparrow", which is Mary's User name. In Mediawiki language we refer to this technique as a piped link because the syntax uses the character "|" often referred to as the pipe. This feature can be very useful to the user as it can display a more meaningful link name for an otherwise complex page address.

Creating New Pages

To create a page, first think about where you might want your page to be linked from. Say you want to create a page for your new Chemistry course. Ideally, there should be a link to this course from a page listing all the science courses. You would go edit the science course page to add a link to your new Chemistry page — even though your page hasn't been made yet. Once you save your changes and click on the new link, you'll be given the opportunity to create the page.

In this first method you are creating a hyperlink in a page to another page that does not yet exist in the wiki. This can be a difficult concept to grasp at the start, but once you see how it works it should become perfectly clear.

Creating a link in your content is an easy process that can be done either by using a simple wiki syntax or through the editing toolbar that appears while in the Editing mode.

It is possible to create a page before you make a link to it. Simply type the name of the desired page onto the end of the http://wikieducator.org/ url, like this http://wikieducator.org/Coffee and hit enter. This will take you to a page called Coffee and prompt you with the option of creating the Coffee page.

Important Note

Important: Before you start creating new pages, please make sure how you name them. You may wish to create a new page with a link back to your userpage or to another page already available on the wiki. In that case, please follow this format: wikieducator.org slash Username slash name of page desired (wikieducator.org/User:XXXX/nameofpagedesired).

Linking to a Userpage

You may wish to create a new page with a link back to your userpage. In that case, please follow this format: wikieducator.org slash Username slash name of page desired (wikieducator.org/User:XXXX/nameofpagedesired).

• Remember: because you made the page without first making a link to it, it might get lost in the sea of pages.

Linking is very important for this reason: If you don't link your new page from an existing page, then no one will be able to find it. Spend some time thinking about good places where you should make a link to your new page. Using the search box is very useful for finding phrases and material where you might want to provide a link.

Tip: If you want to create a page but you are not sure of the best place in the wiki to link your new page from, create a link from your User page. You can always add the link to the appropriate page at a later stage. This way you will not have difficulty finding the page you created

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