The website for WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 is live!
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Website Live!
The website for WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 is live!
All posts by Dirk Riehle
Call for Papers: Open Access, Open Data, and Open Government Research Track at WikiSym + OpenSym 2013
WikiSym, the 9th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration
OpenSym, the 2013 International Symposium on Open Collaboration
August 5-7, 2013 | Hong Kong, China
ACM In-cooperation with SIGWEB and SIGSOFT. Archived in the ACM Digital Library.
Research paper submission deadline: May 17, 2013 (March 17, 2013).
The 2013 Joint International Symposium on Open Collaboration (WikiSym + OpenSym 2013) is the premier conference on open collaboration research, including wikis and social media, Wikipedia, free, libre, and open source software, open access, open data and open government research. WikiSym is in its 9th year and will be complemented by OpenSym, a new conference on open collaboration research and an adjunct to the successful WikiSym conference series. WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 is the first conference to bring together the different strands of open collaboration research, seeking to create synergies and inspire new research between computer scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and everyone interested in understanding open collaboration and how it is changing the world. Read more about the conference at opensym.org/2013.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: OPEN ACCESS, OPEN DATA, AND OPEN GOVERNMENT RESEARCH TRACK
Recent years have seen a huge growth in demand worldwide for Open Access to an extensive range of materials, across a broad range of sectors. The online environment and digital technologies provide unprecedented opportunities for information sharing and collaboration, in both developed and developing countries.
At present, much attention is focused on facilitating access to and reuse of public sector information, government data, research outputs (publications and data), educational resources, legal information (legislation and judgments), spatial and location information, and cultural works.
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 General Call for Submissions (Papers)
WikiSym, the 9th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration
OpenSym, the 2013 International Symposium on Open Collaboration
August 5-7, 2013 | Hong Kong, China
ACM In-cooperation with SIGWEB and SIGSOFT.
About the Conference
The 2013 Joint International Symposium on Open Collaboration (WikiSym + OpenSym 2013) is the premier conference on open collaboration research, including wikis and social media, Wikipedia, free, libre, and open source software, open access, open data and open government research. WikiSym is in its 9th year and will be complemented by OpenSym, a new conference on open collaboration research and an adjunct to the successful WikiSym conference series.
Continue reading WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 General Call for Submissions (Papers)
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Explained
Conference Concept
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 is the conference for researchers and practitioners of open collaboration processes and technology, as found in wikis, Wikipedia, open source, citizen engineering, open access, open data, etc. (See definition at http://wp.me/pezfy-fB). WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 brings together these different strands of open collaboration research and practice in one unifying event, scheduled for Aug 5-7, 2013, in Hong Kong, China.
Definition of Open Collaboration
Many years after we started to use the term open collaboration and after some discussion between the WikiSym steering committee members, here is our definition of “open collaboration”. It provides the umbrella motivation for WikiSym + OpenSym.
Open collaboration is collaboration that is
- egalitarian (everyone can join, no principled or artificial barriers to participation exist),
- meritocratic (decisions and status are merit-based rather than imposed) and
- self-organizing (processes adapt to people rather than people adapt to pre-defined processes).
Prime places to find open collaboration are on wikis, on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects, in open source, in open data and open government initiatives, open innovation, citizen engineering, peer production, and so on.
Announcing WikiSym + OpenSym 2013: Hong Kong, China, on Aug 5-7, 2013
We are happy to announce that WikiSym 2013 will take place in Hong Kong on Aug 5-7, 2013. WikiSym will co-locate with a new sister event, OpenSym 2013. (WikiSym will be followed by Wikimania 2013, also in Hong Kong.) Research paper submission deadlines for WikiSym + OpenSym will be in March 2013. WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 will emphasize the open collaboration aspect of WikiSym both for researchers as well as practitioners. Open space will play an important role. More details to follow, stay tuned!
WikiSym 2012 Testimonials
From Heather Ford‘s excellent blog on Ethnography (and other matters), comes this quote:
In the closing session last year, I remember saying “I have been to a lot of conferences lately and I don’t feel like I belong. But I feel like I belong here.” People come to WikiSym because it’s the place to be if you’re doing Wikipedia work. In the words of conference chair, Cliff Lampe said, “WikiSym is the place we come where we know we don’t have to explain ourselves. Where people just “get it”.
WikiSym 2012 Registration Glitch
If you registered during July 11 and July 27 and you also received an email that your registration was cancelled, you ran into a WikiSym / Google Checkout glitch that we just discovered. The cancellation is correct and you will have to register again using WikiSym 2012 Registration.
We believe that only a small number of registrations are affected. Still, it is annoying, and we apologize for any inconveniences this may cause!
Early registration has been extended until August 6.
ACM’s Copyright Policy
WikiSym archives its proceedings in the ACM Digital Library (as well as on our own servers). The use of the ACM DL is due to our roots in computer science, even though the scope has been extending significantly since the original WikiSym in 2005. The ACM recently published an explanation of its Copyright Policy that explains the extensive set of rights retained by authors who sign the ACM copyright transfer form, which is a precondition for publishing in the ACM Digital Library. These rights include the option to reuse your own work in future papers, to publish your work for non-commercial reasons, and more. A new initiative of the ACM lets authors use the ACM servers for retrieving a paper copy for free. You can read the article’s text online.
Five Years of Open Space at WikiSym
WikiSym, as you may know, is about collaboration — open collaboration, in which people come together on equal footing (egalitarian), where they are valued for their contributions (meritocratic) and where they come not only to listen but to contribute and help form the conference (self-organizing). A wiki specifically is a technology that enables such collaboration, but of course there are other technologies like micro-blogging, traditional blogs, and forums. WikiSym is home to the research and practice of all of these technologies, their applications, and social implications.
One such “technology” is open space, a meeting facilitation technique. It is officially called open space technology to distinguish it from open space preserves, which are about wildland. Open space helps people like event organizers and participants to run an egalitarian, meritocratic, and self-organizing process. Participants are pulled into creating the event, bringing their problems and their expertise to the table. Open space itself then is about the techniques that help participants form a joint agenda, negotiate and allocate time-slots, and then meet and discuss their issues until it is time to move on to the next topic and/or group.
At WikiSym, we have been using open space since 2006, after we had first learned about it (and its wiki-ness) in 2005 (the first WikiSym). Open Space is strong at WikiSym and with WikiSym 2010 we just passed the 5-year anniversary of open space at WikiSym. The symposium organizers, in the run-up to the event, create the traditional program of invited talks and peer-reviewed research and practice talks, as well as a host of other events. They are placed on to the agenda (schedule) and distributed evenly. When WikiSym starts, however, after Open Space’s opening circle participants enhance and extend the agenda with their own topics. Academics may view Open Space as a well-organized form of BoF (birds-of-a-feather) sessions, but it is much more than that.
The beauty of Open Space is that it gives everyone a voice and the appropriate time and space to have it heard in a conversation. It is supported by well-defined best practices that have been developed in Open Space’s more than 25 years of history. Below, you can find some visual impressions from open space at WikiSym.
Panel at WikiSym 2005 with Ward Cunningham (creator of wikis), Jimmy (co-founder of Wikipedia), Ross Mayfield (co-founder of Socialtext), Sunir Shah, and more — no open space yet! (photo courtesy of Raymond King, taken from Flickr)
The Cybernetic Roadmap at WikiSym 2005 — participants struggeling to create open space where we hadn’t yet planned for it (photo courtesy of Raymond King, taken from Flickr)
Open Space Panorama at WikiSym 2006
(photo courtesy of Peter Thoeny)
Open Space at WikiSym 2006
(photo courtesy of Peter Thoeny)
Open Space session at WikiSym 2010
(photo courtesy of Eugene E. Kim, taken from Flickr)
The three Open Space facilitators who have worked with us in the past are Gerard Muller, Ted Ernst, and Karolina Iwa. We have been very happy with them and the only reason why we are switching facilitators is to accommodate schedules and locations as WikiSym is moving around the world.