[24 Aug 2020 – From College IT Leadership. Author: Bill Wrobleski]
What’s the current state of Wikispaces?
Not good. In its current form, Wikispaces is unsustainable in the long run. It runs on a 2014 version of software that due to its level of customization and dependencies, can’t be upgraded directly. In order to update the software, we would have to build a new platform, and migrate data (the exact issues we’ll face doing this are not clear, but it we can count on this being non-trivial).
Staying on the current platform poses these main problems:
- Security – It will likely require OIS exceptions moving forward since security updates may no longer be provided. It also does not support modernizing IAM infrastructure.
- Supportability – Recovery times for degradations and outages are manual and time intensive. The team responsible is short 2 FTEs since the job freeze was put into place.
It’s feasible that we could keep this current version running through the end of 2021, but we can’t delay action beyond that.
What does usage look like?
In 2019, we had about 6,600 unique users. Given the low number, it got us thinking that maybe we should look for alternatives for the future (e.g. Sharepoint, cloud service, etc.).
Since this spring, usage has increased. We’ve had about 9,000 unique logins this year. We haven’t nailed down what changed exactly. We’re trying to figure that out.
What should we do?
It feels like the first thing we need to do is answer the question… what role does Wikispaces play in our collaboration and productivity strategy? When Wikispaces was originally released, we didn’t have tools like Office 365, GSuite, and ServiceNow.
If Wikispaces needs to be part of our long-term strategy, then we need to decide on a technical strategy. Moving to a more current version will cost in the low six figures. We could also arrange for a SaaS-based alternative.
How are we going to move forward?
Unfortunately, we don’t have a formal governance model for collaborative tools, so we have to put together something more informal. My current plan was to convene a small group of people with representatives from ITAC to develop a recommendation for Don/SLT.
We’ll need a decision by October 23, so we can have a long enough off-ramp if retirement is the course of action.
I need to confirm this approach with Don/SLT, but presuming they are supportive, we’ll reach out to Veronica, John Hoh, and Dave Gindhart to get people to help with this committee.
What should everyone do in the meantime?
I would recommend that you continue to use Wikispaces as you do today, but I’d suggest not adding new workloads to the platform until its future is clearer. Of course, you can, but if a decision to migrate is made, that will just mean more data to migrate. (I think this was the spirit of the recommendation Veronica received recently. It was probably premature to communicate in that way, but I think the goal was to give her some warning since the topic is on the table.)