Peer production in online environments vs. in-person collaboration.
As mentioned in the Haythornthwaite article in reference to the crowdsourcing model, online peer production allows for the participation of “many, unconnected individuals,” where participation is “motivated by interest.” Individuals can choose when and how long they wish to participate. This freedom to participate encourages more individuals to provide content and feedback in a project. With in-person collaboration, we usually see a smaller portion of the group providing content and feedback. Online peer production could help with encouraging more individuals to participate because they have the freedom to choose topics of interest and when they wish to participate.
Individuals that are more vocal tend to lead the group and provide a larger portion of the content and feedback with in-person collaboration. With the lightweight peer production, the Haythornthwaite article indicates that online peer production participants are able to make contributions independent of each other, possibly creating an equal chance for participation rather than being dominated by individuals with stronger personalities. Individuals that are not as vocal have a smaller chance for contribution because conversations may be dominated by stronger individuals. The online environment allows all individuals to add content independently as with adding posts to a thread.
The Duguid article mentioned that online peer production as with Gracenote, allows participants to make their own interpretations of categories (to make their own definitions of entities) where content becomes fragmented and difficult to organize and manage. One or two individuals are often designated as moderators with in-person collaboration who set standards for other participants to follow. Moderators use these standards to lead group participation. For instance, moderators will write specific categories (agreed upon by the group) on a board and ask the other participants to list items that fall under the categories. Duplicate categories are removed, and items are removed or added to the remaining categories. Moderators help the members to use the same definitions and interpretations of categories to better organize and manage content.
The Duguid article also mentions that online peer production can defy Graham’s law. Online content is assumed to be edited with correct information, because it is assumed that the experts in a particular field will actually make contributions. However, in some cases the experts do not make any contributions either because they are not aware of the content or they do not wish to participate. In-person participation, particularly with editing and reviewing content, experts in the topic being reviewed are in attendance. With software peer-reviews, programmers and data analysts are usually present to edit and review content. Online peer production allows for anyone regardless of knowledge in a particular topic to contribute.
Online peer production allows for a larger amount of individuals an equal chance to participate and provide content. Individuals in online peer production are unconnected and “motivated by interest.” Moderators with in-person collaboration are able to organize and manage content by explicitly setting standards for the participants to follow. Experts are usually participants with in-person collaboration that review and edit content. It appears that one tradeoff is the larger amount of participation and content generated with online peer production for a higher level of content management and reliability with in-person collaboration.
Large amount of contribution in Wikipedia. Twenty revisions in a 1 minute time interval.
Moderators in offline projects also provide the morale support needed to keep people working on them together, in addition to setting standards for their groups. On the other hand, I believe this is harder to achieve in an online environment because, as you mentioned, people are "unconnected" to others there, including moderators.
ReplyDeleteYou also mentioned that people online have the "freedom to choose topics and when they wish to participate." Open source projects especially are known for this characteristic of online collaboration. In my opinion, the reason why this freedom exists online is that people do not have that same connection that they would have if they worked with others offline and at some physical location, and not having this connection would make it hard for people to leave those with whom they worked after they got to know them personally.
Oops, there is a typo in my last post; I meant, "having this connection...", not "not having this connection..."
ReplyDeleteYour screenshot from Wikipedia was a telling example of how low barriers of entry could result in a large amount of contribution in online peer production. Since communication can be asynchronous in online environment, content contributions could happen intensely in a short span of time like your Wikipedia example. (Wow, twenty revisions in one minute!) I also went to Wikipedia for this assignment. When it comes to time interval between each contribution, the entry I examined also had a similar history and most revisions were made on the same day as the entry was created. You also talked about the tradeoff of online collaboration; allowing for a larger number of individuals to generate content could undermine the reliability of information generated. I wonder if you have come across any illustrative examples, say on Wikipeida, of content management that resulted in presenting misleading information like the Daniel Defoe page Duguid examined.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote that "Individuals that are more vocal tend to lead the group and provide a larger portion of the content and feedback with in-person collaboration." Good point. I hadn't really thought of that, and I can't disagree with that assessment, but couldn't this also be true in peer production environments as well? In fact, given the typically low barriers to entry/exit in most peer production projects, might the effect be more pronounced? For example, say an online project has a single "dedicated", very opinionated contributor (who's not necessarily in any higher position of authority, not a moderator or project leader) might not constant contribution/discussion/edits by this "highly vocal" user overwhelm and possibly drive away other less vocal users?
ReplyDeleteTo use wikipedia as a pseudo-example, I'm sure there have been editing situations where the perhaps "less vocal" editor loses out simply because the "more vocal" editor was willing to get that last edit in. Perhaps the "losing" (less vocal) side, said/thought "screw-it, this isn't worth the headache" and moved on to some other cause.
You also mentioned, "Online peer production allows for anyone regardless of knowledge in a particular topic to contribute." In most cases this is technically true, but I wonder how it looks from a "meaningfulness of the contribution" perspective. Are the contributions for those with less knowledge considered meaningful in most cases?
I feel that online peer production sometimes lacks "direction" as well. While the users are motivated by interest, they may not hold the same beliefs in the product as their collaborators. Perhaps the majority rules and the user gets overruled on their edits. I wonder if there are examples on Wikipedia where it is a battle between users or groups of users over what is correct...
ReplyDeleteResponse to BJ Peter DeLaCruz:
ReplyDeleteThere are many challenges to collaboration online because there are so many chances for misinterpretation due to the lack of face-to-face cues. This would be more of a challenge for moderators to motivate people to work together as a team.
Creating connections with others does make it difficult to leave groups and projects. I joined the Women In Technology project, and I have formed strong friendships with the other women in the project. I have been with the project for 6 years and I do not intend to leave the group in the near future.
Response to as_ics:
I too was surprised by the large number of contributions to entries in Wikipedia. It is even more surprised by how quickly revisions are made after the initial posting of an entry.
Because the large number of edits to an entry in Wikipedia, I usually double check the information posted just to confirm its correctness. However, in reviewing the history of an entry it is nice to know that the administrators and moderators revert edits due to vandalism and what appears to be false information.
I have not come across examples as extreme as the Daniel Defoe example, but I have read entries that do not have enough references to support the content of an entry. For example, the Bacteriophage history section does not have any references to support its content. I would feel more confident in the content if it has reputable references.
Response to Dave K.:
Individuals that make more contributions in an online environment could overwhelm others. However, have noticed that people who don’t contribute as much in face-to-face collaborations tend to give more input with online collaborative tools such as online chat and asynchronous discussions.
Regarding the “meaningfulness of the contribution”, is the question based on the idea that content posted for individuals that are not experts in a particular field useful for them? If this is the case, then the content posted could be meaningful for them if the content is from a reputable source. I noticed that untruths (urban myths) are started when individuals who have little knowledge in a particular field do not seek the truth for themselves.
Response to keokilee:
It would be interesting to see if there have been battles waged between groups over the correctness of content in Wikipedia. I have sat in on face-to-face collaboration where researchers engage in heated discussions on the correctness of their research methods. I would imagine that this type of thing would occur in the online realm as well.