Wikipedia and open content

The same open source philosophy that has been traditionally applied to software development can be applied to the collaborative creation of non-software information products, such as books, music and video. Such products are generically referred to as open content or free cultural works. Due largely to the success of large projects such as Wikipedia and the Creative Commons, open content has gained increasing attention not only in the popular media, but also in scholarly research. It is important to rigorously investigate the workings of the open source process in these new media of expression. This paper introduces the scope of emerging research on the open content phenomenon, other than open source software. We develop a framework for categorizing copyrightable works as utilitarian, factual, aesthetic or opinioned works. Based on these categories, we consider the applicability of some implications of findings from open source software research for open content. We also briefly review the literature for some specific directions of open content research, involving the quality of products, the marketing of digital music, and open content in developing countries.

Context: Wikipedia has become one of the ten-most visited sites on the Web, and the world's leading source of Web reference information. Its rapid success has attracted over 400 scholarly studies that treat Wikipedia as a major topic or data source. Objectives: This article presents a protocol for conducting a systematic mapping (a broad-based literature review) of research on Wikipedia. It identifies what research has been conducted; what research questions have been asked, and which have been answered and which remain unanswered; and what theories and methodologies have been employed to study Wikipedia. Methods: This protocol follows the rigorous methodology of evidence-based software engineering to conduct a systematic mapping study. Results and conclusions: The study specified by this protocol is currently in progress, and has thus far identified over 400 studies. Sample preliminary results are presented.

To date, over 400 peer-reviewed scholarly studies have researched various aspects of Wikipedia. These studies contribute valuable knowledge in understanding the inner workings of Wikipedia and can serve to continuously improve it. In this presentation, we offer a coherent synthesis of the scholarly research that has been conducted on Wikipedia, highlighting the main research trends, summarizing the key findings, and identifying the gaps and unanswered questions. Based on these findings, we apply the research conclusions to the practical functioning of Wikipedia and highlight implications for policy and administration for Wikipedia contributors, administrators, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

This is the published article version of my grant application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The grant is funded as ___.

The same open source philosophy that has been traditionally applied to software development can be applied to the collaborative creation of non-software information products, such as encyclopedias, books, and dictionaries. Most notably, the eight-year-old Wikipedia is a comprehensive general encyclopedia, comprising over 12 million articles in over 200 languages. It becomes increasingly important to rigorously investigate the workings of the open source process to understand its benefits and motivations. This paper presents a research program funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada with the following objectives: (1) Survey open source encyclopedia participants to understand their motivations for participating and their demographic characteristics, and compare them with participants in traditional open source software projects; (2) investigate the process of open source encyclopedia development in a live community to understand how their motivations interact in the open source framework to create quality information products.

Since its establishment in 2001, Wikipedia, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has become a cultural icon of the unlimited possibilities of the World Wide Web. Thus, it has become a serious subject of scholarly study to objectively and rigorously understand it as a phenomenon. This paper reviews studies of Wikipedia that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Among the wealth of studies reviewed, major sub-streams of research covered include: how and why Wikipedia works; assessments of the reliability of its content; using it as a data source for various studies; and applications of Wikipedia in different domains of endeavour.

As the open source movement grows, it becomes important to understand the dynamics that affect the motivation of participants who contribute their time freely to such projects. One important motivation that has been identified is the desire for formal recognition in the open source community. We investigated the impact of social capital in participants' social networks on their recognition-based performance; i.e., the formal status they are accorded in the community. We used a sample of 465 active participants in the Wikipedia open content encyclopedia community to investigate the effects of two types of social capital and found that network closure, measured by direct and indirect ties, had a significant positive effect on increasing participants' recognition-based performance. Structural holes had mixed effects on participants' status, but were generally a source of social capital.

I was the master's thesis supervisor for Kevin Carillo. He published his thesis as the book listed in this entry.