WorkingWiki: a MediaWiki-based platform for collaborative research

Abstract: WorkingWiki is a software extension for the popular MediaWiki platform that makes a wiki into a powerful environment for collaborating on publication-quality manuscripts and software projects. Developed in Jonathan Dushoff's theoretical biology lab at McMaster University and available as free software, it allows wiki users to work together on anything that can be done by using UNIX commands to transform textual "source code" into output. Researchers can use it to collaborate on programs written in R, python, C, or any other language, and there are special features to support easy work on LaTeX documents. It develops the potential of the wiki medium to serve as a combination collaborative text editor, development environment, revision control system, and publishing platform. Its potential uses are open-ended - its processing is controlled by makefiles that are straightforward to customize - and its modular design is intended to allow parts of it to be adapted to other purposes.