Scholarly research of wiki use is in its infancy. Nevertheless, wikis are an outgrowth of the open source community, with the tenets of the “wiki way” following the tents of open source projects. (Wagner and Majchrzak 2006-7). Research is an open source enterprise. Replication of an experiment is not possible unless the original creation or source is shared. Open source software developed from the belief that the knowledge that constitutes a running program—source code—should be free. Open source software refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users see fit (i.e. Google gadgets). In order for something to be considered ‘open source’ it must meet the following requirements:

·    The software license should not restrict parties from selling or giving away the software or require a royalty or fee.

·    Source code should be freely available, easy to obtain, and easy to modify

·    The license must allow modification, experimentation, and redistribution of resulting works.

·    The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons and must not restrict anyone from making use of the software in a specific field.

·    The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed and forbids closing up software by indirect means, such as requiring a non-disclosure agreement, or dependency on a particular software distribution.

·    The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software and must be technology-neutral (Bruce Perens, 1997, cited in Knapp & Neder 2006).

There is a paradigm shift from the point-to-mass paradigm of the manufacturing era, to a collaborative or open model that implies mass participation and creation of content. The division between users and producers of a product or service has become blurred. Yahoo! and Amazon.com have made major commitments to shifting their business models from closed, data driven applications to community-based search tools that allow their users to have a greater impact on the content they present.

Wikis are a product of the open source movement. "The open source movement has produced a set of web tools that can be used by anyone without the limitations imposed by proprietary software licensing.” (Knapp 2006) Cultural institutions, particularly small to medium-sized organizations, should be familiar with the open source movement, because it provides many opportunities to adapt free software to fit their needs and reduces the issues od licensing and copyright. Open source materisl often have GNU licenses, aka free software and documentation licenses (See logo above from www.wikipedia.org).

Online exhibits built from collaboration tools like wikis, blogs, and content management systems are creating a new role for museums as the curators and exhibitors of a growing body of public digital material. (Knapp 2006)

There is a four-step process to adopting the open source model and encouraging user participation and collaboration:

1. Using open source software so that unique software contributions can be built collaboratively and then shared, which lays the foundation for…

2. Personalizing the experience for a museum Web site’s visitors,

3. Allowing visitors to create their own content, and

4. Encouraging the sharing of that content with galleries, museums and arts education websites (Knapp 2006)

One museum project currently exploring these types of “personalization” technologies are ArtMobs, where students create their own podcasts with dramatic interpretations, orginial music and unofficial guides related to works by Picasso, Max Bekcman, Cindy Sherman and others at MoMA’s permanent collection. A huge challenge to cultural institutions of course is being willing to accept data from the public. Public wikis are an obvious next step for museums looking to accept and promote individualized data on their websites. They will allow museums to collaborate with one another, with artists, and with the public, to create online exhibits from the growing set of digital materials in ways that have not been possible until now (Knapp & Neder 2006). These personalized web spaces will not be a replacement of the museum's expertise, but an additional level of pariticpation and collaboration between the institutions and their audiences.

Open source software and projects specific to exhibitions:

• Omeka: Omeka is a simple and flexible system for organizations, cultural institutions, and individuals to manage and publish items, collections, and exhibits on the web.
• OpenCollection: OpenCollection is intended as an alternative to expensive proprietary software solutions that have traditionally been used for collections cataloguing and publishing by museums, archives, libraries and other organizations.
• Pachyderm: Pachyderm is an easy-to-use multimedia authoring tool. Designed for people with little multimedia experience, Pachyderm is accessed through a web browser and is as easy to use as filling out a web form.
• OpenExhibits:  Open Exhibits will develop a library of extensible software modules for all major platforms that exhibit developers can configure in almost unlimited ways. Built using the popular Adobe Flash and Flex authoring tools, museum professionals will be able to creative innovative floor and Web-based exhibits more easily and inexpensively.