‘Wikipave’ app launched by concrete paving association

The American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) has launched its Wikipave.org website, placing information related to concrete pavement at the fingertips of anyone, anywhere in the world.    

“Wikipave is the largest scale technology transfer, knowledge transfer, and educational initiative in the 51-year history of the American Concrete Pavement Association,” says association President and CEO Gerald Voigt. “This collaborative, web-based application reflects the vast body of technical information developed by ACPA over more than five decades, but also includes a wealth of technical and general information from other sources.”

Wikipave is a significant change for the association and industry in terms of delivering information, Voigt notes.  “We historically produced and sold commercially-printed technical resources and other publications. We are cutting a new path, embracing a technology that most member-based associations consider competition to the value-proposition of their members.  We are making this commitment because of the great potential and value the application offers.”

Like most businesses and associations over the past decade, ACPA has transitioned to more digital publications and migrated more information to the internet.  “This wholesale change to Wikipave is a natural progression in our view, but starting this project has required a tremendous effort to coalesce, update, and begin the process to reformat the material into the wiki application,” he says.
Content for Wikipave was originally drawn from resources produced by the association and its technology partners, allies, and affiliates.

“It’s a work in progress,” Voigt says. “By their very nature, wiki’s are and should be dynamic and constantly evolving.  What we love most is the opportunity to engage our members in developing and editing content.   Members of associations today want to engage for the value and sense of belonging to a community, but they want to do it on their own terms.  We see Wikipave as a great adaptation to meet this need.”

ACPA is quick to point out that at this stage some of the content is intentionally “rough-hewn,” basically put in place for review and redaction by its member community. 

“There are some pages of information that we would consider to be farther along,” Voigt says. “But the fallacy of thinking something like this is complete goes against the nature of this technology, which is constantly evolving.”

The American Concrete Pavement Association is the national trade association for the concrete pavement industry.   The primary mission of the ACPA is to create and maintain a strong national presence through dynamic, strategic leadership; effective technical expertise and resources; and persuasive advocacy on behalf of the concrete pavement industry.