Legal Research

Canadian Government Launches Internal Wiki

By Michel-Adrien Sheppard

As reported on the front page of today’s Ottawa Citizen, the federal government has launched its own internal version of Wikipedia to which all federal public servants will be able to contribute:

“At the annual Government in Technology (GTEC) conference, taking place at the Westin Hotel in downtown Ottawa, federal officials took the wraps off the government’s internal version of the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which it calls GCpedia.”

“The service will allow federal employees to post, comment and edit articles placed on GCpedia by their peers (…) ”

“For example, information about climate change policies could be posted and commented on by scientists and bureaucrats from National Resources Canada (NRCan), Environment Canada and Industry Canada. The concept may help break down walls between government departments that have traditionally been stingy when it comes to sharing information.”

The pioneers in the federal government on Web 2.0 initiatives have been the people at Natural Resources Canada. The October 2008 issue of NetworkedGovernment, a publication for Canadian government executives, describes how NRCan has approached the implementation of Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs, etc.

Cross-posted to Library Boy.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on October 29, 2008 (boomark / email).