Tellio

Via Scoop.it - Tech Pedagogy
Understanding collaboration in Wikipedia:   Conclusion This study raises some important questions about what collaboration may actually look like in Wikipedia and may cast doubt on idealized notions of open, community–generated knowledge. Rather than reflecting the contributions and expertise of a large group of people, the typical article in Wikipedia reflects the efforts of a relatively small group of users (median of 12) making a relatively small number of edits (median of 21). Further, the nature of revisions made and user contribution histories suggest that the majority of revisions made by users are micro–structural, stylistic, or typographical and, therefore, may have little impact on the validity of article content. Beyond the questions that these findings raise for collaboration within Wikipedia itself, those interested in similarly open, community–developed projects, including organizations that seek to use wiki–type technologies for documentation purposes and educational endeavors that seek to use wiki–type technologies to support collaborative writing and project development, should consider how accurately the final products (e.g., articles) of a wiki truly reflect the quality and depth of collaboration taking place within them. And, it seems prudent that any attempts at understanding underlying collaborative efforts taking place with the aid of participatory technologies, like a wiki, in the future should account for such factors as collaborative rigor and the nature of individual contributions for the resulting findings to have robust explanatory power.
Via uic.edu