We are using Semantic MediaWiki to develop public and internal web sites for large-scale scientific programs involving participants in industry, government and universities across Canada. MediaWiki was originally developed for the free content Wikipedia encyclopedia and related projects. Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) combines some of the benefits of a structured database, such as fields, forms, queries and views, with the flexibility of a wiki system, which allows quick creation and editing of pages and categories by any enabled user. This facilitates both sharing of information and data between projects and participants, and communication with the general public.

We are currently developing wiki websites for the Cellulosic Biofuel Network which involves more than 40 government and university scientists working on research to develop a low-cost economic and environmental plan for production of ethanol from biomass.Here we provide a concise overview of SMW then provide a description and evaluation of its use for developing the CBioN website(s). An important advantage of using a wiki is the ability to allow multiple users to easily update the content of the site. Wikis for the public web sites are set up to have a typical web site appearance, while supporting several selected editors for content management. Internal wikis are restricted to be viewed only by members of a program and are open for editing by all members, so they need to be as easy to use as possible without giving up SMW functionality. The URL for the public CBioN website is: www.cellulosic-biofuel.ca.