The International Water Association decided to use XWiki to create an online encyclopedia called Water Wiki as a collaborative resource for the global water community. XWiki was chosen as the platform because it was stable, feature-rich, and supported by an external development team. The XWiki team customized the software to better suit the needs of the project by adding things like dedicated article and organization spaces, article ratings, and an advanced user profile system. The Digital Marketing Manager at IWA Publishing stated they received positive feedback from users and presenters and that XWiki enabled them to achieve their goals for the project.

1. CASE STUDY
A global platform
for the water
community

2. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
2
The IWA Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of the International Water Association (IWA),
decided to use XWiki to create a collaborative encyclopedia on this subject: Water Wiki.
Context
The IWA Publishing provides information services on all aspects of water, wastewater and related
environmental fields. As part of their mission, IWA Publishing were searching for a way to create a
resource hub that would provide relevant information to the global water community.
But how would they go about managing such a big amount of information, while still providing the
community with a place to interact? It seemed that a wiki could be the relevant tool they were looking
for.
This tool (wiki) had to be particularly a stable, feature-rich yet inexpensive platform that would be
developed and supported technically by an external team. They have found that XWiki matched the
criteria.
The Solution
Water Wiki was meant to become a collaborative information resource and a community hub for the
Water community. As a result a certain number of changes were brought to XWiki in order to better
suit the customer's needs:
 a customized skin
 dedicated “Article” & “Organization” spaces
 a customized livetable
Sector: environment
Need: create an information
resource and a hub for the
global water community
Solution: encyclopedia
Product: XWiki Enterprise
The XWiki team has proven to be professional and responsive,
technically able and aware of the importance of commercial
issues (deadlines, reliability etc.). The platform itself works well
according to our purposes and seems to have a good scope for
further expansion of features. We have had only positive user
feedback on the Water Wiki and from its presentation at
scientific conferences around the world. Thus, the XWiki
software, development and support team have enabled us to do
our job well and that is a positive feedback indeed.
(David Burns, Digital Marketing Manager at IWA Publishing)
(David Burns, Digital Marketing Manager at IWA Publishing)

3. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
3
 a discussion tab for each article
 attributes that define the article type (e.g. an article that is in incipient state is called a "Stub")
 article ratings
 advanced user profile (users are identified by their organization, are able to upload their CVs,
can be contacted by email, can add research interests to their profile - feature present when
signing in too)
 new Group Work Spaces (public and private spaces, management of users that can access the
space or not, Mail sent to warn the admin of the space that a user wants to join)
 lots of pages using the xwiki stats to display information (CSV export available)
 an improved watchlist
Water Wiki: homepage