If you've ever wanted to have an encyclopedia at your fingertips - or contribute to a public encyclopedia, - you'll embrace a growing trend: online knowledge sharing. This type of collaborative, question-driven knowledge system gathers questions and answers on thousands - or hundreds of thousands - of topics, and then organizes the topics and provides easy access to the knowledge base for users. In practice, college students benefit because they can contribute what they know, as well as learn about a variety of topics. It also acts as a social network, in that they can also form communities with those who have similar interests and work together to create a reliable source of information on specific topics.

For writers, such an encyclopedia provides them with the opportunity to share their knowledge with others, as well as to use the knowledge base as a source of research for their work. Generally speaking, a question-driven knowledge system enables anyone to ask questions on topics that do not yet appear. Then, an expert in that particular field can provide a reliable, knowledgeable answer. It's a quick, easy way to get the research needed for essays, term papers, and articles.

How to Spot the Best Share and Create Systems

When it comes to knowledge sites, look for one that provides easy search mechanisms for finding questions and answers. This way, you won't get frustrated reading redundant questions. The best sites also provide a bookmark feature, so questions can be saved for future reference or for update notifications. Other features of the best sites include a discussion forum that is separate from the knowledge base, community-building features, and the ability to check the editing history of a question or of a contributor.

Sometimes, knowledge-based create-and-share websites offer incentives for contributions, such as free advertising or ads revenue sharing. As the knowledge base grows and attracts new college students, writers, and professionals, these incentives tend to grow.

Daily Expansion

A knowledge-driven site's question and answer system typically grows on a daily basis, and eventually covers tens of thousands of topics. The topics can range from gardening, parenting, and pets to gas mileage, mortgages, and water conservation. That's one reason why college students and writers find this type of service helpful. Since they often research a variety of topics on a regular basis, this one-stop system is perfect.

These kinds of specific Web services are bringing together professionals, writers, and college students to create a vast knowledge base, special knowledge-sharing communities, and questions and answers that can benefit anyone in any field. And the best news of all is these sites are free for everyone to enjoy. It's like having a group of experts on speed dial!