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140 Youcef Bey, Christian Boitet and Kyo Kageurashould thus be an inherent part of the system. We will elaborate on theseaspects of the system in Section 6.4. Wiki-based functions for an online CAT environmentThe technologies that allow collaboration and sharing of knowledge on the Web ingeneral have significantly progressed. Technically speaking, the collaborative functionsfor translation data management can easily be realised using an existing freecollaborative environment such as XWiki, based on the Wiki architecture, whichwe adopted as the basis of our system. Existing Wiki functions can then easily beextended by exploiting XML and Ajax.A Wiki is an online collaborative environment. It allows users to freely createand edit web pages which become immediately active on the Web. The pages canbe created either in HTML or using simplified tags, called Wiki syntax. This allowsthe organisation of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. AsAugar stated (Augar et al. 2004):A Wiki is a freely expandable collection of interlinked web pages, a hypertext systemfor storing and modifying information – a database, where each page is easilyedited by any user with a forms-capable web browser client.Though there are scores of different Wiki implementations, most of them sharecommon basic features. The content of a web document is posted immediately,eliminating the need for distribution. Participants can be notified about new contentautomatically by e-mail or news list, allowing them to take a position on newmodifications. After any modification, the Wiki environment creates a new documentand saves a version of the old content. This allows control over the progress ofthe translation. To control different communities or groups, the space aspect providedin Wikis allows documents to be grouped in specific community projects. Aspace consists of a set of documents, a group of users, and access rights. For eachmodification, metadata are attached, so that any user can trace the history of contentmodifications, including the date of modification and the profile of the userswho made the modifications. Access to Wiki is simple and easy; all that is neededby users is a computer with a browser and an Internet connection (Schwartz 2004).There is an extended Wiki implementation dedicated to online volunteertranslators (Translationwiki 2007). Translationwiki makes good use of basic Wikifunctions. For instance, in Translationwiki, each translation TU (translation unit)is handled as an independent document. Translators can upload documents inArabic, Chinese, English and French. After automatic segmentation, the TUs areput up for translation, and are translated separately. The system also contains aversioning module that retains the history of the modifications and allows trans-