WikiSym: research on wikis

[Jim Tittsler]

The recently concluded WikiSym (short for the International Symposium
on Wikis) has published a number of the academic papers presented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-11-02/Conference_report

One that caught my eye was "Herding the Cats: The Influence of Groups
in Coordinating Peer Production?" I've been skeptical of the emphasis
on workgroups, but this paper makes a case for how joining a group can
affect behavior (and complement individual contributions).
http://www.wikisym.org/ws2009/procfiles/p107-kittur.pdf

[Gladys Gahona]

Jim,

Thanks a million for sharing, I am deeply interested in learning more about wikis.

Saludos

2009/11/3 Jim Tittsler <jtit...@gmail.com>

--
Gladys Gahona
http://www.gladysgahona.com
http://www.wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/Online_schedule/eL4C31
http://www.integrating-technology.com/pd/
Skype:chela5808

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the pointer to this research paper -- a solid piece of research.

It's an insightful read, most notably the significant increase in productivity and output using the group approach.

mmm -- wondering how our community can leverage the advantages of the group approach?

In Wikieducator -- the workgroup approach has achieved significant outputs in a relatively short time frame. At the same time, workgroups can contribute to burn-out and wiki stress. What can WikiEducator do to mitigate this challenge?

I'm also thinking about ways in which we can learn from the Wikipedia experience. One of the challenges facing Wikimedia projects is supporting newbies who may not be familiar with the sophistication and complexity of all the polices and guidelines which support group work. Having a new page deleted within a few minutes because of non-adherence to a range of group related guidelines is not a positive experience ;-).

I'd like to see WikiEducator develop and refine approaches to support and promote all members, irrespective of their experience of the peer-production model. 

It seems that the apprenticeship model, where we guide and support all members at their level of experience is a valuable and productive approach. WikiEducator is also very good at scaling professional development of its members --- Learning4Content being a prime example.  Most of our training facilitators are "graduates" of the L4C initiative, which illustrates the scalability of our model. Thoughts? Next steps?

Cheers
Wayne

2009/11/3 Jim Tittsler <jtit...@gmail.com>

--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director,
International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg

[Alison Snieckus]

Thanks, Jim, wonderful resource:

One that caught my eye was "Herding the Cats: The Influence of Groups
in Coordinating Peer Production?"  I've been skeptical of the emphasis
on workgroups, but this paper makes a case for how joining a group can
affect behavior (and complement individual contributions).
 http://www.wikisym.org/ws2009/procfiles/p107-kittur.pdf

OK, I'm feeling like a cat <smile>. Amazing how they identified a random sample of editors and then extracted key information from their body of work --- and their source was the wiki history data of approx 144 million edits (spanning inception to Oct 2007), wow.

The results do make a reasonably good case, given their study design, that editors who are part of a collaborative subgroup change their behavior in ways that benefit the subgroup's work and the wiki as a whole (e.g., good citizenship behaviors).

Makes a strong case for WikiEducator workgroups. I agree with Wayne:

One of the challenges facing Wikimedia projects is supporting newbies who may not be familiar with the sophistication and complexity of all the polices and guidelines which support group work.

What if at the conclusion of an L4C session, new members were encouraged to join one of a set of active project workgroups (not community workgroups, because these often entail a larger commitment to get up to speed). These "next-step" projects could be chosen because the project is currently active, the project work is relatively straightforward, the workgroup has agreed to provide support for the new members as they figure out how to effectively collaborate on the project's work, .... The set of projects could include a broad spectrum of subject-matter, so that individual members could find something that suited their interest.

For example, I think the WE math glossary could be a good place for new members who have a background in math. (Full disclosure: it worked for me :-)

I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on how workgroups could be used to strengthen the support of new members?

Interesting, I think this ties in well with a number of other recent threads on collaboration. Just another side of the same coin.

Alison
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:ASnieckus

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Alison,

That's a great suggestion. I think there are a number of opportunities to tweak the L4C initiative to provide guided support in getting involved with projects and workgroups.

Also -- I'm very keen to explore opportunities for developing intermediate-level tutorials. That is, establishing a "career-path" for WikiEducators after completing the basic L4C training  :-).

The OER Foundation has limited funding to support the development of intermediate-level tutorials. One option would be developing training resources and corresponding online workshops to help WikiEducators make the transition to workgroups and collaborative projects.

Assuming we allocate two or three tutorials @ the intermediate-level to supporting group work --

* What learning outcomes sould we include?
* Do we have ideas for a tentative content outline for these tutorials?
* What workgroups do we have or new workgroups should we create for this purpose?
* Are their WikiEducator volunteers who would be interested in taking this further?

mmm -- getting excited about the opportunities.

Cheers
Wayne
 

2009/11/4 Alison Snieckus <alison....@gmail.com>

[Patricia Schlicht]

I will join the herds of cats (lol) supporting Alison’s remarks and I also agree with Wayne’s perspective on this.

Cheers,

Patricia