The Confluence Enterprise wiki was launched in April 2006 as a coordinated effort between Financial Management, Academic Human Resources, Planning and Budgeting, and the Registrar. The wiki is currently administered by Brandon Whitehead (Academic HR) and Dinah Walters (Financial Management). Questions about this document should be directed to Brandon Whitehead (whitehbr@u.washington.edu) and Dinah Walters (waltersd@u.washington.edu).
The wiki is divided into individual wikis called "spaces" that are independent in terms of content and permissions. The spaces share a single system and a single user base.
The terms of use described herein are subject to change and will be reviewed on a periodic basis to reflect the changing needs of the business.
The Confluence Wiki is intended to be used by University of Washington Central Administration for the purpose of managing and coordinating central administrative processes. Use by schools and colleges, as well as uses whereby the majority of users are employed at the school or college level is outside the scope of the current deployment. Use by select individuals, including faculty and academic administrators may be granted on a case by case basis for participation on interdisciplinary projects for which central administration is the primary focus. Furthermore, the wiki is designed to be used as an UW internal collaboration tool. Therefore, anonymous access to the wiki (i.e. making wiki content public) will not be granted. Use of the wiki by unauthorized persons is prohibited.
The wiki is divided into two types of spaces:
Organizational Unit spaces are spaces used and administered by a single organizational unit in the administration. These spaces may be used to manage projects and teams within the scope of the unit as well as for procedural documentation. Examples include Financial Management, Academic Human Resources and Business Services units.
Project and team spaces are designated for projects and teams whereby the membership extends beyond the bounds of an organizational unit.
The goal of the system administrators is to provide near 24 x 7 access to the wiki. The system will occasionally be taken offline for the purpose of migrating data for system upgrades. Every attempt will be made to perform scheduled maintenance and upgrades outside of normal business hours (M-F 8am-5pm). Should a system failure occur, every effort will be made to return the system to service. However, the possibility exists that the system could be down for several business days should a catastrophic error occur.
Backups of the wiki data are captured on a daily basis at approximately 12am (GMT+8). Should a catastrophic failure occur that would require rebuilding the system from a backup, any changes to the system between the backup and the failure would be lost.
Atlassian, the software vendor that develops Confluence, aims to release bug fixes every 2-3 weeks and major releases every 2-3 months. With this in mind, our goal is to provide system upgrades approximately once every six weeks depending on feature needs, bug fixes and service improvement requests. Should a major security vulnerability be discovered, a system upgrade will be completed as soon as possible.
Service improvements include changes to the core configuration of the wiki as well as the installation and upgrade of system plug-ins, which provide additional functionality and macro availability. In order to maintain a stable production environment, service improvements will only occur in conjunction with system upgrades (see Upgrades).
Requests for changes should be directed to your appropriate space administrator (see Space Administration), who can then direct the request to the system administrators (see System Administration). Service improvements will be evaluated in collaboration with space administrators. Changes that may compromise the sustainability, security or performance of the wiki will not be implemented.
Current rules for the management of confidential materials are being formed and revised as necessary in coordination with the UW Attorney General's office.
The wiki is primarily designed to be an open medium of exchange. However, there are some important considerations regarding the content and use of the wiki that follow.
Requests for new spaces are managed by the Wiki Administrators. Each space MUST have an assigned space administrator identified at the time of space creation. The role of Space Administrator comes with a defined set of responsibilities. The Wiki Administrators reserve the right to grant or deny requests for new spaces as they deem necessary for the sustainable management of the system and the content therein.
Requests for new users are managed by the Wiki Administrators. Wiki users will typically be members of central administration (see Scope above). New users are typically added when requests for new spaces are granted, or in order to add users to existing spaces. The wiki administrators reserve the right to grant or deny requests for new users as they deem necessary for the sustainable management of the system and the content therein. When an user separates from the University,the space administrator must notify the wiki administrators.
Groups are primarily used by the wiki administrators for the purpose of managing space permissions, and are generally set up on a one-group-per-space basis. However, it may be necessary for space administrators to have multiple groups for the purpose of page restriction. In this case, space administrators should direct requests for creating and modifying groups to the wiki administrators.
Accounts are reviewed for activity every 90 days. If an account is found to be inactive (user has not logged in) for 90 days, the user's login may be disabled.
Your first point of contact for help using the wiki is your Space Administrator. He or she is best equipped to address your day-to-day questions. If the wiki is unavailable and your space administrator is unavailable, you may contact the wiki administrators.
The system running the wiki is a server that is owned and funded by Financial Management, managed by C&C ITI, and located in the C&C secure data center. The Confluence software is primarily managed by Brandon Whitehead (Academic Human Resource), and secondarily managed by Dinah Walters (Financial Management).
The overall administration of the wiki (account creation, user and group management, space creation, user support) is managed primarily by Dinah Walters (Financial Management) and secondarily by Brandon Whitehead (Academic Human Resources). This role is responsible for managing global content on the wiki, such as templates and notices. This role is not responsible for content in individual spaces, but may access content as deemed necessary for the general administration of the wiki.
All spaces have one or more designated Space Administrators. The space administrator is granted the ability to set permissions for their space, as well as the ability to manage the portion of configuration of the space not otherwise managed by the Wiki Administration. The space administrator is responsible for actively monitoring and managing the content of their space, as well as managing the user base.The space administrator must immediately notify the Wiki Administrators if an user ends their employment at the University. Space administrator training will be offered starting in Autumn 2006. Individual users are entirely responsible for the content in their personal space, should they choose to create one.
Training classes for the Confluence Enterprise wiki are provided on an as-needed basis at no cost.