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A Model for Context in the Design of Open Production Communities

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Abstract

Open production communities (OPCs) provide technical features and social norms for a vast but dispersed and diverse crowd to collectively accumulate content. In OPCs, certain mechanisms, policies, and technologies are provided for voluntary users to participate in community-related activities including content generation, evaluation, qualification, and distribution and in some cases even community governance. Due to the known complexities and dynamism of online communities, designing a successful community is deemed more an art than a science. Numerous studies have investigated different aspects of certain types of OPCs. Most of these studies, however, fall short of delivering a general view or prescription due to their narrow focus on a certain type of OPCs. In contribution to theories on technology-mediated social participation (TMSP), this study synthesizes the streams of research in the particular area of OPCs and delivers a theoretical framework as a baseline for adapting findings from one specific type of community on another. This framework consists of four primary dimensions, namely, platform features, content, user, and community. The corresponding attributes of these dimensions and the existing interdependencies are discussed in detail. Furthermore, a decision diagram for selecting features and a design guideline for "decontextualizing" findings are introduced as possible applications of the framework. The framework also provides a new and reliable foundation on which future research can extend its findings and prescriptions in a systematic way.

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... By taking its cue from the concepts of knowledge sharing, global collaboration (Cummings 2004) and the Design Open Production Communities (OPC) model (Ziaie 2014), the diachronic classification proposed by Liang identifies in recent years a model of open production in which we are witnessing a maturation of graphic design software (2D and 3D), the spread of mobile platforms and apps for the management and creation of content, the global and unstoppable spread of social networks and the circulation of data. On the production level, the 'traditional' production is replaced by an increasingly performing mobile-based production in which contents and work tools travel online. ...
... The design dimension of this evolving scenario in the field of motion design concerns both technical, content and aesthetic issues. OPCs software platforms have to 'provide the highest abstraction layer consisting of the necessary tools and structures for a community to achieve its goals' (Ziaie 2014, p. 6), a substantial pool of contents and tools (Siersdorfer, San Pedro & Sanderson 2009;Konstan & Riedl 2012), has to hold a user-oriented interface, be usable, accessible, aesthetically valuable and customizable, and to effectively target whether community or standalone user, according to gender, age, social status, etc. (Olsson 2009;Ziaie 2014). To date, the Open Production Online Platforms are used to create graphics and animation outputs with different objectives, from adv, to entertainment, to social awareness, to information (Liang et al. 2016). ...
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... This matches well the LPP model of learning by doing and interacting with other members of a community. Second, AT encompasses the broader scope of the interactions between members within their community and directed to an object, contextually taking into consideration how these interactions are mediated by technical artifacts, community norms, and policies [37]. The combination of LPP and AT was thus suitable to address the research questions posed, as AT was used to code different aspects of user interaction within the socio-technical system of Wikidata, while LPP enabled to explain their evolution. ...
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... McKenzie et al. (2012) follows this approach, distinguishing between collaborative and creative platforms, whilst De Sanctis and Gallupe (1987) combine it with collaboration features, including group size in their framework. Ziaie (2014) brings together di↵erent theories-Activity Theory (Kuutti, 1996) and the socio-technical model developed by Whitworth (2009)-to explain the social, organisational, and technological dimensions of online communities. Finally, the social machines framework (Shadbolt et al., 2013) emphasises the combination of human and machine-driven components in webbased socio-technical systems, rather than considering technology only as a mediator between people and policies within a system. ...
Thesis
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... However, an increasing number of scholars are also exploring the collaborative practices and environments in which open source scientific innovation takes place (e.g. Langlois & Garzarelli, 2008;Petzel et al., 2010;Ziaie, 2014). For example, Petzel et al. (2010) consider how the commons can support innovation in the production of scientific hardware, while Baldwin and Hippel (2011) expound on the turn from producer innovation to user innovation in open, collaborative environments. ...
... As the above examples suggest, most references concentrate on the outcomes of existing jam activities rather than theoretical discussions about their platforms and infrastructures. Ziaie (2014) tried to fill this gap, and proposed a design guideline for open production communities. In these communities, voluntary participants provide policies and technologies to facilitate the process of generation, evaluation, distribution, and governance of contents. ...
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... As the above examples suggest, most references concentrate on the outcomes of existing jam activities rather than theoretical discussions about their platforms and infrastructures. Ziaie (2014) tried to fill this gap, and proposed a design guideline for open production communities. In these communities, voluntary participants provide policies and technologies to facilitate the process of generation, evaluation, distribution, and governance of contents. ...
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How insights from the social sciences, including social psychology and economics, can improve the design of online communities. Online communities are among the most popular destinations on the Internet, but not all online communities are equally successful. For every flourishing Facebook, there is a moribund Friendster—not to mention the scores of smaller social networking sites that never attracted enough members to be viable. This book offers lessons from theory and empirical research in the social sciences that can help improve the design of online communities. The authors draw on the literature in psychology, economics, and other social sciences, as well as their own research, translating general findings into useful design claims. They explain, for example, how to encourage information contributions based on the theory of public goods, and how to build members' commitment based on theories of interpersonal bond formation. For each design claim, they offer supporting evidence from theory, experiments, or observational studies.
Chapter
Because a Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) project is unlikely to sustain a long-term success unless there is an associated community that provides the platform for developers, users, and user-turned-developers to collaborate with each other, understanding the well-observed phenomenon that F/OSS systems experience “natural product evolution” cannot be complete without understanding the structure and evolution of their associated communities. This chapter examines the structure of F/OSS communities and the co-evolution of F/OSS systems and communities based on a case study. Although F/OSS systems and communities generally co-evolve, they co-evolve differently depending on the goal of the system and the structure of the community. A systematic analysis of the differences leads us to propose a classification of F/OSS projects into three types: Exploration-Oriented, Utility-Oriented, and Services-Oriented. Practical implications of realizing the co-evolution and recognizing the different types of F/OSS projects are discussed to provide guidance for F/OSS practitioners. Purchase this chapter to continue reading all 25 pages >
Chapter
Because a Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) project is unlikely to sustain a long-term success unless there is an associated community that provides the platform for developers, users, and user-turned-developers to collaborate with each other, understanding the well-observed phenomenon that F/OSS systems experience “natural product evolution” cannot be complete without understanding the structure and evolution of their associated communities. This chapter examines the structure of F/OSS communities and the co-evolution of F/OSS systems and communities based on a case study. Although F/OSS systems and communities generally co-evolve, they co-evolve differently depending on the goal of the system and the structure of the community. A systematic analysis of the differences leads us to propose a classification of F/OSS projects into three types: Exploration-Oriented, Utility-Oriented, and Services-Oriented. Practical implications of realizing the co-evolution and recognizing the different types of F/OSS projects are discussed to provide guidance for F/OSS practitioners.
Article
Wikipedia, even with its middling quality and poor representation of the world's diversity, could be the best encyclopedia users will get. When Wikipedia launched in 2001, it wasn't intended to be an information source in its own right. In 2003, Wales formed the Wikimedia Foundation to operate the servers and software that run Wikipedia and raise money to support them. But control of the site's content remained with the community dubbed Wikipedians, who over the next few years compiled an encyclopedia larger than any before. Wikipedia inherited and embraced the cultural expectations that an encyclopedia ought to be authoritative, comprehensive, and underpinned by the rational spirit of the Enlightenment. The number of active editors on the English-language Wikipedia peaked in 2007 at more than 51,000 and has been declining ever since. Even though Wikipedia has far fewer active editors than it did in its heyday, the number and length of its articles continue to grow. This means the volunteers who remain have more to do.
Article
In the last decade, collaborative open production communities have provided an effective platform for geographically dispersed users to collaborate and generate content in a well-structured and consistent form. Wikipedia is a prominent example in this area. What is of great importance in production communities is the prioritization and evolution of features with regards to the community lifecycle. Users are the cornerstone of such communities and their needs and attitudes constantly change as communities grow. The increasing amount and versatility of content and users requires modifications in areas ranging from user roles and access levels to content quality standards and community policies and goals. In this paper, we draw on two pertinent theories in terms of the lifecycle of online communities and open collaborative communities in particular by focusing on the case of Wikipedia. We conceptualize three general stages (Rising, Organizing, and Stabilizing) within the lifecycle of collaborative open production communities. The salient factors, features and focus of attention in each stage are provided and the chronology of features is visualized. These findings, if properly generalized, can help designers of other types of open production communities effectively allocate their resources and introduce new features based on the needs of both community and users.
Article
The success of the Linux operating system has demonstrated the viability of open-source software, an alternative form of software development that challenges traditional assumptions about software markets. Understanding why developers participate in open-source projects is crucial for assessing the impact of open-source software. Their motivations fall into two broad categories: internal factors (e.g., intrinsic motivation, altruism) and external rewards (e.g., expected future returns, personal needs). The results of a survey administered to open-source programmers are summarized.
Article
While prior research has found that familiarity is beneficial to team performance, it is not clear whether different kinds of familiarity are more or less beneficial when the work has different types of complexity. In this paper, we theorize how task and team familiarity interact with task and team coordination complexity to influence team performance. We posit that task familiarity is more beneficial with more complex tasks (i.e., tasks that are larger or with more complex structures) and that team familiarity is more beneficial when team coordination is more difficult (i.e., for larger or geographically dispersed teams). Finally, we propose that the effects of task familiarity and team familiarity on team performance are complementary. Based on a field study of geographically distributed software teams, two of our hypotheses are disconfirmed: Our results show that the beneficial effects of task familiarity decline when tasks are more structurally complex and are independent of task size. Conversely, the hypotheses for team familiarity are confirmed as the benefit of team familiarity for team performance is enhanced when team coordination is more challenging-i.e., when teams are larger or geographically dispersed. Finally, surprisingly, we find that task and team familiarity are more substitutive than complementary in their joint effects on team performance: Task familiarity improves team performance more strongly when team familiarity is weak and vice versa. Our study contributes by revealing how different types of familiarity can enhance team performance in a real-world setting where the task and its coordination can be highly complex.
Article
This paper examines the policy dimensions of user-generated content (UGC). It argues that policy-makers must create a policy environment that both balances both creator and end user's rights and allows for the flourishing of UGC production and distribution because of both its economic and cultural value and ability to stimulate innovation. This paper emphasizes that UGC is an important creative outlet because it possesses either or both originality and transformativity. It discusses the multitude of means through which UGC generates value, serves as a medium for cultural expression and allows innovative activity. Despite the importance of UGC numerous barriers exist to inhibit its production including private ordering mechanisms such as licenses and technological protection measures and both major branches of intellectual property law (patents and copyrights). This paper reviews the current policy framework for UGC in the U.S., U.K., and E.U. before presenting a case study of the proposed UGC exception in Canadian copyright law. It concludes by discussing the how policy-makers can create a flourishing UGC environment and provides specific policy recommendations.
Article
Diversity is a defining characteristic of global collectives facilitated by the Internet. Though substantial evidence suggests that diversity has profound implications for a variety of outcomes including performance, member engagement, and withdrawal behavior, the effects of diversity have been predominantly investigated in the context of organizational workgroups or virtual teams. We use a diversity lens to study the success of nontraditional virtual work groups exemplified by open source software (OSS) projects. Building on the diversity literature, we propose that three types of diversity (separation, variety, and disparity) influence two critical outcomes for OSS projects: community engagement and market success. We draw on the OSS literature to further suggest that the effects of diversity on market success are moderated by the application development stage. We instantiate the operational definitions of three forms of diversity to the unique context of open source projects. Using archival data from 357 projects hosted on SourceForge, we find that disparity diversity, reflecting variation in participants' contribution-based reputation, is positively associated with success. The impact of separation diversity, conceptualized as culture and measured as diversity in the spoken language and country of participants, has a negative impact on community engagement but an unexpected positive effect on market success. Variety diversity, reflected in dispersion in project participant roles, positively influences community engagement and market success. The impact of diversity on market success is conditional on the development stage of the project. We discuss how the study's findings advance the literature on antecedents of OSS success, expand our theoretical understanding of diversity, and present the practical implications of the results for managers of distributed collectives.
Article
New Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis permit any organizational member of a virtual community of practice (CoP) to dynamically edit, integrate, and rewrite content (what we call knowledge shaping) as well as contribute personal knowledge. Previous research on factors that motivate contribution in virtual CoPs has focused exclusively on factors explaining why people contribute their personal knowledge, with no research focused on why people make the knowledge-shaping contributions (rewriting, integrating, and restructuring pages) which are possible with wikis.We hypothesize that factors that explain frequency of contribution will be different for those who shape from those who contribute only their personal knowledge. The results support our hypotheses. In addition, we find that shapers are not more likely to be managers or members of a community’s core group who might typically serve in an administrator role, contrary to prior expectations. The implications of using Web 2.0 tools to encourage this shaping behavior are discussed
Article
Both the use of Web sites and the empirical knowledge as to what constitutes effective Web site design has grown exponentially in recent years. The aim of the current article is to outline the history and key elements of Web site design in an e-commerce context – primarily in the period 2002–2012. It was in 2002 that a Special Issue of ISR was focused on ‘Measuring e-Commerce in Net-Enabled Organizations.’ Before this, work was conducted on Web site design, but much of it was anecdotal. Systematic, empirical research and modeling of Web site design to dependent variables like trust, satisfaction, and loyalty until then had not receive substantial focus – at least in the information systems domain. In addition to an overview of empirical findings, this article has a practical focus on what designers must know about Web site elements if they are to provide compelling user experiences, taking into account the site’s likely users. To this end, the article elaborates components of effective Web site design, user characteristics, and the online context that impact Web usage and acceptance, and design issues as they are relevant to diverse users including those in global markets. Web site elements that result in positive business impact are articulated. This retrospective on Web site design concludes with an overview of future research directions and current developments.
Article
Reputation systems are an important part of online production communities, for they provide both users and machine with proper metrics to assess the truthfulness and reliability of users, and their generated content. In multi-tier communities, in which users can be promoted to higher ranks, reputation systems are given a new role, which is helping the community to have a more meritocratic promotion process. This paper provides a design framework for reputation systems and promotion processes in the context of multi-tier production communities (MPCs). An apt promotion process based on a well-designed reputation system can be deemed as a valid practice to motivate users, enhance their level of trust and satisfaction, and increase the quantity and quality of contributions. We address different aspects and design elements of reputation systems and their association with and their impact on user participation in production communities, particularly those with a multi-tier structure.
Article
An information-exchange virtual community (VC) is an IT-supported virtual space that is composed of a group of people for accessing, sharing and disseminating topic-related experiences and knowledge through communication and social interaction [36,43]. With the increasing number of VCs and low switching cost, it is challenging to retain existing users and encourage their continued participation. By integrating the IS post-adoption research and IS Success model, we propose a research framework to investigate VC users' continuance intention from a quality perspective. Based on a field survey, we find that information and system quality directly affect perceived individual benefits and user satisfaction, which ultimately determine user continuance intention to consume and to provide information. Furthermore, by modeling information quality and system quality as multifaceted constructs, our results reveal key quality concerns in information-exchange VCs. Implications for VC design and management are also discussed.
Article
This paper develops and illustrates the theory of collaboration through open superposition: the process of depositing motivationally independent layers of work on top of each other over time. The theory is developed in a study of community-based free and open source software (FLOSS) development, through a research arc of discovery (participant observation), replication (two archival case studies), and theorization. The theory explains two key findings: (1) the overwhelming majority of work is accomplished with only a single programmer working on any one task, and (2) tasks that appear too large for any one individual are more likely to be deferred until they are easier rather than being undertaken through structured team work. Moreover, the theory explains how working through open superposition can lead to the discovery of a work breakdown that results in complex, functionally interdependent, work being accomplished without crippling search costs. We identify a set of socio-technical contingencies under which collaboration through open superposition is likely to be effective, including characteristics of artifacts made from information as the objects being worked on. We demonstrate the usefulness of the theory by using it to analyze difficulties in learning from FLOSS in other domains of work and in the IS function of for-profit organizations.
Conference Paper
As well-known socio-technical systems that aim at accumulating and sharing content by facilitating aligned coordination and collaboration of voluntary participant, online voluntary production communities have been the focus of academic scrutiny in the last decade. Considering their popularity and the increasing theories and models for addressing their various design intricacies and governance methods, there is still no systematic categorization available based on their characteristics to make the existing descriptive or prescriptive approaches more specific or generalizable. In this paper, we address pertinent attributes of such communities and divide them into three major categories, each further divided into few distinct types. Existing theories and frameworks are drawn upon with a design-oriented approach for the sake of this categorization, so that more transparent statements can be made with regard to their design and operation. This refined contextualization helps community designers aptly select features from successful communities only when the underlying theory and characteristic are in line with their own.
Article
In this paper we argue that there is a trade-off between generativity and originality in online communities that support open collaboration. We build on foundational theoretical work in peer production to formulate and test a series of hypotheses suggesting that the generativity of creative works is associated with moderate complexity, prominent authors, and cumulativeness. We also formulate and test three hypotheses that these qualities are associated with decreased originality in resulting derivatives. Our analysis uses a rich data set from the Scratch Online Community --a large web-site where young people openly share and remix animations and video games. We discuss the implications of this trade-off for the design of peer production systems that support amateur creativity.
Article
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.
Article
One of the major innovations in personalization in the last 20 years was the injection of social knowledge into the model of the user. The user is not considered an isolated individual any more, but a member of one or more communities. User communities have been facilitated by the striking advancements of electronic communications and in particular the penetration of the Web into people’s everyday routine. Communities arise in a number of different ways. Social networking tools typically allow users to proactively connect to each other. Alternatively, data mining tools discover communities of connected Web sites or communities of Web users. In this article, we focus on the latter type of community, which is commonly mined from logs of users’ activity on the Web. We recall how this process has been used to model the users’ interests and personalize Web applications. Collaborative filtering and recommendation are the most widely used forms of community-driven personalization. However, we examine a range of other interesting alternatives that are worth investigating further. This effort leads us naturally to the recent developments on the Web and particularly the advent of the social Web. We explain how this development draws together the different viewpoints on Web communities and introduces new opportunities for community-based personalization. In particular, we propose the concept of active user community and show how this relates to recent efforts on mining social networks and social media.
Article
Online communities depend on the persistent contributions of heterogeneous users with diverse motivations and ways of participating. As these online communities exist over time, it is possible that users change the way in which they contribute to the site. Through interviews with 31 long-term members of a user-generated content community who have decreased their participation on the site, we examined the meaning that these users gave to their contribution and how their new participation patterns related to their initial motivations. We complement the reader-to-leader framework (Preece and Shneiderman: AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 13–32, 2009) by propounding the concept of latent user to understand decreasing content contribution and user life-cycles in online communities. We showed that even though latent users decrease their content contribution, their participation becomes more selective and remained consistent with initial motivations to participate.
Article
Online discussion communities have become a widely used medium for interaction, enabling conversations across a broad range of topics and contexts. Their success, however, depends on participants' willingness to invest their time and attention in the absence of formal role and control structures. Why, then, would individuals choose to return repeatedly to a particular community and engage in the various behaviors that are necessary to keep conversation within the community going? Some studies of online communities argue that individuals are driven by self-interest, while others emphasize more altruistic motivations. To get beyond these inconsistent explanations, we offer a model that brings dissimilar rationales into a single conceptual framework and shows the validity of each rationale in explaining different online behaviors. Drawing on typologies of organizational commitment, we argue that members may have psychological bonds to a particular online community based on (a) need, (b) affect, and/or (c) obligation. We develop hypotheses that explain how each form of commitment to a community affects the likelihood that a member will engage in particular behaviors (reading threads, posting replies, moderating the discussion). Our results indicate that each form of community commitment has a unique impact on each behavior, with need-based commitment predicting thread reading, affect-based commitment predicting reply posting and moderating behaviors, and obligation-based commitment predicting only moderating behavior. Researchers seeking to understand how discussion-based communities function will benefit from this more precise theorizing of how each form of member commitment relates to different kinds of online behaviors. Community managers who seek to encourage particular behaviors may use our results to target the underlying form of commitment most likely to encourage the activities they wish to promote.
Article
As they relate to user-generated content on the internet, civic engagement and psychological empowerment have received significant interest in recent years. While past studies have examined online civic participation and political empowerment, the way in which civic engagement offline and content generation online are related to psychological empowerment has not been thoroughly explored. The purpose of this study is to address the roles that gratifications of content generation online (e.g. satisfying recognition needs, cognitive needs, social needs and entertainment needs) and civic engagement offline play in predicting levels of user-generated content on the internet; and how the gratifications of content generation online, civic engagement offline and user-generated content influence the three components of psychological empowerment (i.e. self-efficacy, perceived competence and desire for control). This study reasserts that psychological empowerment can be enhanced by one’s degree of content generation online and by both one’s attitude and behavior in civic engagement offline.
Article
Data from 574 participants were used to assess perceptions of message, site, and sponsor credibility across four genres of websites; to explore the extent and effects of verifying web-based information; and to measure the relative influence of sponsor familiarity and site attributes on perceived credibility.The results show that perceptions of credibility differed, such that news organization websites were rated highest and personal websites lowest, in terms of message, sponsor, and overall site credibility, with e-commerce and special interest sites rated between these, for the most part.The results also indicated that credibility assessments appear to be primarily due to website attributes (e.g. design features, depth of content, site complexity) rather than to familiarity with website sponsors. Finally, there was a negative relationship between self-reported and observed information verification behavior and a positive relationship between self-reported verification and internet/web experience. The findings are used to inform the theoretical development of perceived web credibility.