collaborative dictionary

Hi, everyone.

The semester is starting for me tomorrow, and I will be teaching a field
methods course for the first time (yikes!). As part of their evaluation, the
students will be preparing a grammatical sketch and dictionary of the
language (we're looking at Farsi). I know how I want to handle the
grammatical sketch--everyone will write up and contribute a portion of the
grammar (phonology, nouns, verbs, simple sentences, etc), but I'd like the
dictionary to be collaborative, and I was wondering if a wiki would be a
good way to go about this. I have never set up a wiki (or even contributed
to one!), but I am given to understand that it's not too difficult to get
going or to use.

So my question to you all is Will this work? What are the best software
packages for doing this sort of thing? Can I make the wiki secure so that
only course participants can contribute? Are there better ways of making a
collaborative dictionary? I'd like to hear what you think.

Thanks.

Dirk

Reply