Defence needs IT recruit for busy Wiki

The Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence Division (C3ID) of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) will be outsourcing a specialist IT position to administer its in-house divisional Wiki system.

The organisation sought to fill the position, specified as a 400 hour contract, through a Request For Tender (RFT) appealing to Web specialists with experience in Wiki mark-up language, which closed today.

C3ID went live with the open source Mediawiki earlier in the year to enable content and knowledge sharing between staff.

According to documents adjoining the RFT, the Wiki began as an amalgamation of two information portals within the organisation and has now "developed to a stage where the assistance of a professional IT specialist in this area is required to maximise its functionality".

In addition to handling increased traffic and existing content, the contractor will be required to introduce a software access control model.

The rapid development of C3ID's divisional Wiki comes only a few months after the DSTO established another Wiki resource known as Logwiki in August, to provide shared content related to logistics to personnel across all Australian Defence Force services.

"Because Wikis, such as Wikipedia and Logwiki, are easy to use and encourage contributions, the number of articles contained in these knowledge resources is vastly greater than traditional resources, creating a more comprehensive and informative knowledge base," said DSTO researcher Egon Kuster in a statement.