Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to define standard guidelines for the development of a wiki collaboration space for e-Learning, in order to provide collaborative activities among students, and between instructors and students. Design/methodology/approach: The general requirements and extended features of wiki collaboration space were determined by conducting a requirement study and discussion with major stakeholders, i.e. students and tutors. Then, the wiki collaboration space was developed based on an open source wiki system. Finally, a wiki collaboration space was evaluated in terms of usability and collaboration effectiveness. Findings: A comparison was performed between the wiki collaboration space and the original wiki in students' works in an online course. The results showed that the effectiveness of collaboration and usefulness of wiki collaboration space were higher than original wiki in collaborative assignment. Practical implications: As for practical implications, e-Learning developers/managers can use the outcome of this study as a guideline to integrate wiki and/or other social software to supplement e-Learning systems for better collaboration. Originality/value: There is a need to define standard guidelines that provide the necessary features for wiki in e-Learning. In this study, extended features of wiki as collaborative learning tool were identified and evaluated to meet the needs of students in e-Learning environment. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.