CIS 3000: Introduction to Computer Game Design

Course Wikis

Because you will be collaborating with other students in a group, we expect you to be using collaboration software. In particular, a Wiki is absolutely crucial for your group, as it gives you a central place to write down your game design ideas, post concept art, and keep track of your meetings.

While there are many free Wiki sites available, they tend to be cluttered with a lot of advertising. In addition, you may not want your class Wiki visible to the whole wide world. Fortunately, you have an alternative. Cornell provides a local Wiki service: Confluence.

You are not required to use Confluence, however. Unlike Cornell Forge, we are open to external Wikis. We want you to find the right tools to make you productive. The following have all been popular choices in the past:

Wikidot
This used to be the defacto wiki site for this course. It supports all the standard features and has good administrative controls. It is moving to a paid model, however, and your site will be covered with ads.
Google Sites
Google Sites is not as full-featured as many other Wiki services. However, it does benefit from being free and easy to use. Use it only if you cannot find anything else better.
Microsoft OneNote
This is a proprietary solution that comes with some versions of Microsoft Office. It requires that everyone in your group have OneNote. However, I have found that some groups really like this solution, and are very productive with it.
Your Own Wiki Server
If you feel confident enough, you can always set up your own wiki server. The group Pandora's Sphere, did this in a previous year. If you choose this route, the requirement is that the Wiki server must remain up and running until graduation weekend.

With that said, unless you have a strong preference for one of the alternatives, it would be nice to move most of the group Wikis to Confluence. We will have more information about this when it is time for your group to create a Wiki later in the course.