Biomedical Engineering Reference
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citations from Pubmed using a list of identifi ers. Similar extensions exist
for RSS feeds or social networks.
Finally, the Application Programming Interface (API) provided by
MediaWiki allows more elaborate automation. Programs (or Bots) can
perform maintenance updates in an unattended fashion and handle issues
such as detecting broken links or correcting spelling and capitalisation
[7]. Encyclopaedic knowledge is meant to be consumed in many ways,
presented differently for different audiences. Similarly, several extensions
allow export of content in various formats.
A key feature of Semantic MediaWiki is the capability to query
semantic annotations like a database in addition to the traditional search.
The default query mechanism allows the formatting of query results
inside wiki pages as lists and tables, but also as links to comma separated
values (CSV) fi les, RSS feeds and JSON fi les. The optional Semantic
Result Formats extension adds many more formats such as tag clouds,
graphs, charts, timelines, calendars, or maps.
16.3.3 Ease of use
The last category of extensions making Semantic MediaWiki such
a good fi t to build an Enterprise Encyclopaedia covers interface
customisations and improvements to user experience. Extensions such as
ContributionCredits improve trust and credibility by giving visible credits
to the authors of wiki pages and providing readers with an individual to
contact for more questions on the topic of a page. Other improvements
include authentication frameworks, to remove the need to login and
lower the barrier of entry for new users, navigation improvements such
as tabbed content or social profi les complete with activity history and a
system of points to encourage participation.
A particularly noteworthy effort to improve usability of Semantic
MediaWiki is the Halo extension [9], which provides a complete makeover
of advanced functionalities, including a customised rich text editor, inline
forms and menus to edit properties and manage an ontology, an advanced
access control mechanism and improved maintenance and data integration
options. Halo and related extensions are both available as individual
modules and as a packaged version of Semantic MediaWiki called SMW+.
In the end, the array of extensions available to MediaWiki makes it
possible to customise the wiki to the needs of the users and provides the
necessary tools to fi t it easily in a growing ecosystem of social networks
within the enterprise.
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