Search

Although research on open collaboration for innovation has generally focused on the voluntary participation of individuals who are not strictly governed by formal authority concentrated at higher levels of organizational hierarchy, more recent studies highlight the importance of exploring how their tasks should be organized to enhance performance outcomes. This study extends this line of work by conceptualizing polyarchy as a decentralized decision-making structure that directs how core members of a project team screen a large collection of novel ideas generated by team members, and empirically examining whether and how polyarchy affects task completion time. In the context of online projects for open-source software development at GitHub, we find that a polyarchical decision-making structure reduces task completion time. Closer examination also shows that this positive effect on decision-making speed becomes stronger when tasks are explorative rather than exploitative in nature. Implications for open, distributed models of innovation and nontraditional forms of decision-making structures are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants in open collaboration communities coproduce knowledge despite minimal explicit communication to coordinate the efforts. Studying how participants coordinate around the knowledge artifact and its impacts are critical for understanding the open knowledge production model. This study builds on the theory of stigmergy, wherein actions performed by a participant leave traces on a knowledge artifact and stimulate succeeding actions. We find that stigmergy involves two intertwined processes: collective modification and collective excitation. We propose a new measure of stigmergy based on the spatial and temporal clustering of contributions. By analyzing thousands of Wikipedia articles, we find that the degree of stigmergy is positively associated with community members' participation and the quality of the knowledge produced. This study contributes to the understanding of open collaboration by characterizing the spatial-temporal clustering of contributions and providing new insights into the relationship between stigmergy and knowledge production outcomes. These findings can help practitioners increase user engagement in knowledge production processes in order to create more sustainable open collaboration communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the business model and the strategic intent to adopt an open collaboration initiative influence the perceived quality of collaboration outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a framework to analyze the role of the strategic dimension and the operational dimension in open collaboration initiatives through multiple case studies in three companies to understand how the open collaboration initiative was deployed and how was the level of the alignment between these two dimensions. Findings – The studied cases revealed that when an open collaboration initiative starts in the strategic dimension and there is an alignment between the organizational dimension and operational dimension, the collaboration outcomes are clearer and more traceable. Research limitations/implications – The study highlights the need to consider the involvement and the internal alignment between strategic and operational dimensions when deploying an open collaboration activity if they want to achieve all the benefits. Practical implications – The presented framework can help managers to evaluate and understand how open collaboration activities are deployed within the company. Social implications – The study shows that when an open collaboration initiative is planned, its results and benefits can be extended to local communities by developing them. Originality/value – This study aims to analyze the open collaboration initiative’s contribution to the overall organizational performance through the alignment between the organizational dimension and operational dimension perspective.

This research aims at understanding the open collaboration involved in producing Wikipedia Good Articles (GA). To achieve this goal, it is necessary to analyse who contributes to the collaborative creation of GA and how they are involved in the collaboration process. We propose an approach that first employs factor analysis to identify editing abilities and then uses these editing abilities scores to distinguish editors. Then, we generate sequence of editors participating in the work process to analyse the patterns of collaboration. Without loss of generality, we use GA of three Wikipedia categories covering two general topics and a science topic to demonstrate our approach. The result shows that we can successfully generate editor abilities and identify different types of editors. Then we observe the sequence of different editor involved in the creation process. For the three GA categories examined, we found that GA exhibited the characteristic of highly scored content-shaping ability editors involved in the later stage of the collaboration process. The result demonstrates that our approach provides a clearer understanding of how Wikipedia GA are created through open collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As data-based research activities and outcomes increase and ontact or non-face-to-face activities become common, the demand for easy utilization of resources, tools, functions, and easily accessible information required for research in the R&D sector has increased accordingly. With the rapid increase in the demand for collaborative research based on online platforms, research support institutions strive to provide venues for research activities that merge various information and functions. ScienceON, an integrated science & technology (S&T) knowledge infrastructure service developed and operated by the Korea Institute of S&T Information (KISTI), supports open collaboration by connecting and merging all the information, functions, and infrastructure required for research activities. This paper describes the online research activity support tool provided by ScienceON and the remarkable results achieved through this activity. Specifically, the excellent creation of the following flow of meta-material research activities in the ontact space is elucidated. First, the papers required for a meta-material analysis are retrieved, virtual simulation is conducted with the experimental data extracted from the papers, and research data are accumulated. ScienceON’s tools for supporting ontact research activity will play a role as an important service in the era of digital transformation and open science.

Peer production online communities are groups of people that collaboratively engage in the building of common resources such as wikis and open source projects. In such communities, participation is highly unequal: few people concentrate the majority of the workload, while the rest provide irregular and sporadic contributions. The distribution of participation is typically characterized as a power law distribution. However, recent statistical studies on empirical data have challenged the power law dominance in other domains. This work critically examines the assumption that the distribution of participation in wikis follows such distribution. We use statistical tools to analyse over 6,000 wikis from Wikia/Fandom, the largest wiki repository. We study the empirical distribution of each wiki comparing it with different well-known skewed distributions. The results show that the power law performs poorly, surpassed by three others with a more moderated heavy-tail behavior. In particular, the truncated power law is superior to all competing distributions, or superior to some and as good as the rest, in 99.3% of the cases. These findings have implications that can inform a better modeling of participation in peer production, and help to produce more accurate predictions of the tail behavior, which represents the activity and frequency of the core contributors. Thus, we propose to consider the truncated power law as the distribution to characterize participation distribution in wiki communities. Furthermore, the truncated power law parameters provide a meaningful interpretation to characterize the community in terms of the frequency of participation of occasional contributors and how unequal are the group of core contributors. Finally, we found a relationship between the parameters and the productivity of the community and its size. These results open research venues for the characterization of communities in wikis and in online peer production.

It has become a burgeoning trend for the innovation paradigm to shift from producer-dominant to non-producer centric. Based on a critical review of the non-producer innovation literature, we identified several limitations of existing non-producer innovation paradigms--grassroots innovation, free innovation, common innovation, and social innovation--along two critical dimensions: responsibility governance of innovation outcomes and effective organizing form for collaborative innovation. To address the theoretical gaps in existing non-producer innovation research, we propose citizen innovation (CI) as a new integrated innovation paradigm to balance these two dimensions by focusing on citizens' unique role as innovators. In the paper, we discuss CI's theoretical framework from three aspects: (1) citizen participation in innovation; (2) open collaborative innovation as the organizing form; (3) the process and incentive mechanisms of citizen innovation. We also offer two real-world examples to support the main propositions and mechanisms of CI. To conclude, we reflect on the limitations of the current research and discuss future directions for CI research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the concept of crowd innovation or crowdsourcing that adopted by bloggers, in the popular press, the business community, and in academia. It mentions about different forms of crowdsourcing both in public and private to find help in solving problems and developing innovations; and also focuses on the toughest scientific and technological challenges that have been solved through contests.

In autumn 2018, a team within the University Library decided to advance the usage of different methods inspired by the perspectives within the field of “UX” to study the use of the learning spaces in the library. A special project concerned the students‟ use of group study rooms. Here the library employed a method where student mentors working for the library gathered basic statistical data through observations. The student mentors measured the usage of the study rooms, seats used, technology used in the rooms, sound levels etcetera at several time points each day. The information was continuously registered in a shared Google sheet that also worked as the basic tool for the analysis. The results of the study gave important guidance for the development of the study rooms and the learning environment in general. More importantly, the use of Google and the shared process of collecting and analyzing information was seen as a rewarding learning experience by the student mentors and the involved library staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The open source software (OSS) movement has become widely recognized as an effective way to deliver software. Even big software companies, well-known for being restrictive when it comes to publishing their source code artifacts, have recently adopted open source initiatives and released for general use the source code of some of their most notable products. We conducted an exploratory study on merits of the widespread belief that open-sourcing a proprietary software project will attract external developers, like casual contributors, and therefore improve software quality (e.g., “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”). By examining the pre- and post-migration software history of eight active, popular, non-trivial proprietary projects that became open source, we characterize the phenomenon and identify some challenges. Contrary to what many believe, we found that only a few projects experienced a growth in newcomers, contributions, and popularity; furthermore, this growth does not last long. The results from the study can be useful for helping software companies to better understand the hidden challenges of open-sourcing their software projects to attract external developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people is used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy-making initiatives; however, this use has usually focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process, such as agenda-setting and policy evaluations. Other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy-making, with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy-making and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The article addresses questions surrounding the role of crowdsourcing and whether it can be considered as a policy tool or as a technological enabler and investigates the current trends and future directions of crowdsourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study whether and how the diversity of editors and teams affects the quality of work in a virtual cooperative work environment on the Wikipedia example. We propose a measure of interests diversity of an editor and some measures of team diversity in terms of members' interests and experience. Statistical and machine learning methods are used to investigate the dependency between diversity and work quality. The presented experimental results confirm our hypothesis that interest diversity of a single editors and team diversity are positively related to the quality of their work. Interestingly, some of our experiments also indicate that diversity may be more important than such attributes as productivity of an editor or size or experience of the team. Our experimental results demonstrate that it is possible to predict work quality based on diversity which is an additional statistical signal that diversity is correlated with work quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inner Source (IS) is the use of open source software development practices and the establishment of an open source-like culture within organizations. The organization may still develop proprietary software but internally opens up its development. A steady stream of scientific literature and practitioner reports indicates the interest in this research area. However, the research area lacks a systematic assessment of known research work: No model exists that defines IS thoroughly. Various case studies provide insights into IS programs in the context of specific organizations but only few publications apply a broader perspective. To resolve this, we performed an extensive literature survey and analyzed 43 IS related publications plus additional background literature. Using qualitative data analysis methods, we developed a model of the elements that constitute IS. We present a classification framework for IS programs and projects and apply it to lay out a map of known IS endeavors. Further, we present qualitative models summarizing the benefits and challenges of IS adoption. The survey provides the first broad review of IS literature and systematic arrangement of IS research results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of artificial general intelligence and the global brain provides new opportunities for realizing humanity's long quest for a more utopian existence. One possibility is a more successful implementation of the state socialist vision of a centrally managed economy, possibly controlled by an AGI “Nanny” instead of a central committee of politicians. An alternative outcome, more in keeping with the original Marxist vision of the withering away of the state, may be the mutualist vision of organizing economic and social life along voluntary lines. A number of recent developments and new ideas may facilitate this outcome. The institution of the commons, in the past available only to small geographical communities, can now be used by global communities. Open collaboration and exchange networks facilitate voluntary cooperative activity by people at dispersed physical locations. Open Production Networks can make the most complicated economic exchanges transparent to consumers, allowing them to factor ethical and sociological considerations into their purchasing decisions. Offer Networks can help people with similar interests and complementary abilities to organize joint projects and organizations. Blockchain technologies could be used to create transparent currencies in which transactions can be done openly. These and other related technologies have the potential to humanize global economic interactions, giving them more emotional resonance, as increasing affluence lessens individual and societal preoccupation with maximizing economic gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Patron Game studies the individual provision of a public good, i.e., a situation in which the cost of contributing exceeds by construction its private return (e.g., volunteering, Open Collaboration projects). We test the Patron Game in the lab finding that contributions are high, though significantly lower than in a classic Public Good Game. Results show that demand effects and the warm glow of giving account almost entirely for the contributions, with the former playing the most prominent role. The social nature of the individual provision of a public good is confirmed by the fact that, even when the efficiency multiplier is removed, contributions are higher than in comparable Dictator Games.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to see how digital societies’ studies can be inspired by cross-cultural management. Design/methodology/approach – Theory critical analysis and review. Findings – The paper reveals many similarities and analogies, allowing for useful connections between cross-cultural management research, and studying digital societies. Originality/value – By exposing methodological and theoretical links of cross-cultural management field in general, and Magala’s contribution in particular, the following paper helps in better understanding of contemporary research on digital societies, as well as allows for the use of already proven methodologies and approaches in the emerging field of the internet studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitally networked voluntary associations such as free software projects and Wikipedia can be distinguished from capitalist firms in two respects. First, their predominant logic is ‘ethical’. Participation is primarily motivated by self-fulfilment and validated by a community of peers, rather than by earning wages. Second, their governance is ‘modular’, understood in a design sense (decomposable blocks sharing a common interface), but also in political economy terms: participants oppose restricted ownership and control by individually socializing their works into commons. In recent years capitalist-centralized firms have increasingly engaged with ethical-modular organizations, in some cases paying wages to participants (such labour is thus both ‘alienated’ or sold, and ‘communal’, as workers freely cooperate to produce commons). This article reviews the literature dealing with the relationship of these two organizational types. It argues that the manner in which scholars approach a central characteristic of ethical-modular organizations – participants relinquish exclusive property rights over the resource they have created – leads to highly diverse interpretations. Four hypotheses are presented. A ‘panoptic’ view overlooks the abjuration of exclusive property rights, so that ethical-modular organizations can be defined as a variant of the evolution of capitalist firms into post-bureaucratic networks. ‘Skeptics’ view this abjuration as irrelevant, and ethical-modular organizations as increasing worker exploitation. In contrast, ‘activists’ celebrate the abjuration of exclusive property rights, and present ethical-modular organizations as key actors in a historical process leading to the disappearance of capitalism and hierarchy. Finally ‘reformists’ suggest that the co-optation of communal labour by firms will benefit business practices and society. The article examines the analytical focus of each hypothesis in terms of labour, loss of control by firms over workers, and societal impact. Where appropriate, it raises questions and objections. The conclusion addresses communal labour’s effective dependence on capitalist-centralized firms and suggests factors which may contribute to its emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the state of the research on crowdsourcing for policymaking? This article begins to answer this question by collecting, categorizing, and situating an extensive body of the extant research investigating policy crowdsourcing, within a new framework built on fundamental typologies from each field. We first define seven universal characteristics of the three general crowdsourcing techniques (virtual labor markets, tournament crowdsourcing, open collaboration), to examine the relative trade-offs of each modality. We then compare these three types of crowdsourcing to the different stages of the policy cycle, in order to situate the literature spanning both domains. We finally discuss research trends in crowdsourcing for public policy and highlight the research gaps and overlaps in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread participation in collaborative writing and public discourse on blogs, news sites, Wikipedia and other online information sources is creating a new class of information literacy skills. In a series of qualitative studies, I examined high school students' information assessment practices as they helped build a collaborative online information source. I identified two types of strategies for assessing information sources: first-order strategies involve adopting known heuristics for assessing sources whereas second-order strategies involve reflective construction of standards based on students' understanding of how information is produced and the tasks in which they are engaged. I link these constructs to the literature on knowledge building and use them to explain both information assessment strategies and how participation in information production on open collaboration platforms can provide learners with a concrete vantage point from which to consider the information sources they use. Moreover, I find that learners can experience responsibility for contributing to new knowledge in several dimensions, including a shared and individual sense of responsibility in both local and global contexts. Finally, I discuss implications of these findings for research on collaboration and learning as well as for educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Open" is not just a fancy synonym for transparent and accountable. The "Open" in Open Government, Open Data, Open Information, and Open Innovation stands for the changing relation between citizens and authorities. Many citizens no longer accept the passive stance representative democracy held for them. They take an active approach in setting up better means of collaboration by ICTs. They demand and gain access to their historically grown collective knowledge stored in government data. Not just on a local level, they actively shape the political agenda. Open Government is to be seen in the context of citizens‘ rights: the right to actively participate in the process of agenda-setting and decision-making. Research into open government needs to address the value of the changing relation between citizens, public administration, and political authority. The paper argues finally for the application of the Public Value concept to research into open government.

In this short introductory piece, we define open collaboration and contextualize the diverse articles in this special issue in a common vocabulary and history. We provide a definition of open collaboration and situate the phenomenon within an interrelated set of scholarly and ideological movements. We then examine the properties of open collaboration systems that have given rise to research and review major areas of scholarship. We close with a summary of consistent findings in open collaboration research to date. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Understanding and evaluating systems for open collaboration depends, in part, on appreciating their normative and institutional contexts. In this article, I examine press-public collaboration by tracing how and why news organizations both distance themselves from and depend on networked actors outside the newsroom to achieve professional and organizational goals. I situate contemporary press-public networks within infrastructure scholarship, review their relationship to models of the public sphere, and trace the motivations and assumptions embedded within news organizations’ application programming interfaces, software toolkits that let those outside the newsroom access and repurpose journalistic data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]