The Canisius College Wiki, powered by software called Confluence, contains documentation and instructions essential for faculty, staff, and students at the college.  It also can display information relevant to partner organizations, prospect students, and others outside the college. 

The Wiki's chief virtue is ease of use.  It is less polished or attractive as the main website (www.canisius.edu) but allows faculty and staff to more quickly add or update information shared on the web.  Each wiki page has its own sharing link, so visitors need not navigate through the wiki to find something; Canisius employees can simply share a page or set of pages directly with clients or colleagues.  The main Canisius website should properly display information that seldom changes, or has a strong public relations purpose.  The wiki houses documentation and instructions consisting of lengthier text blocks, that may change more frequently, or that should be maintained by several employees at once.

Read more about the uses of the wiki (versus other web content systems)

For those who have no experience in adding content to the web, Confluence is a great way to get started.  For those who have extensively built content on the web, Confluence can still be a handy way to maintain regularly-changing or updated material in an easily linkable space.  

In this self-paced training resource you'll learn how Confluence is organized and used, and how to build things in the Canisius Wiki. You can navigate to specific topics, or work through them sequentially, by using the Next and Back options at the bottom of each screen.

Topics

• How Stuff is Organized in Confluence
• The Wiki: Basic Rules for Creating and Managing Content
• Adding Content to a Confluence Page
• Files in the Wiki
• Adding and Arranging Pages within a Confluence Space
• Adding and Managing Page Restrictions
• Building Navigation Into Your Wiki Pages
• Use of the Wiki
• Wiki Page Style Guide

The Basics

Let's start by watching a very basic introduction:

Sharing Wiki Pages

It's possible to share any wiki page, either in an email or perhaps on another web resource, via an individual address or URL for each page.  Visitors to your wiki pages do not need to go to wiki.canisius.edu and navigate to your page; a link can send them directly there.  To get that sharing link, you must be logged into the wiki.  Then, find the Share link in the upper right of the page.  Click that, and you'll see an option to copy a URL:

Wiki page sharing: see it in a video!

You can practice this right now, on this page!  Be sure you are logged into the wiki, and click Share in the upper right.  Then, click "copy."  You can paste the link to this page anywhere you like!  Email it with a co-worker as a great tip!

Learn More About Confluence

This space provides an introduction to Confluence here at Canisius College, to get you up and running fairly quickly.  But if you want the long-form "User's Manual," Confluence's creators at Atlassian have that here.  

Next: How is the Wiki Organized? >>