Category Archives: Conference Contributions

Reliability of User-Generated Data: the Case of Biographical Data in Wikipedia

Announcement, Conference Contributions, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Posters, Research Tracks, Wikipedia Track

Title: Reliability of User-Generated Data: the Case of Biographical Data in Wikipedia

Authors: Robert Viseur

Abstract: Wikipedia is a collaborative multilingual encyclopedia launched in 2001. We already conducted a first research on the extraction of biographical data about personalities from Belgium in order to build a large database with biographical data. However, the question of the reliability of the data arises. In particular, in the case of Wikipedia, the data are generated by users and could be subject to errors. In consequence, we wanted to answer to the following question: are the data introduced in Wikipedia articles reliable? Our research is organized in three sections. The first section provides a brief state of the art about the reliability of the user-generated data. A second section presents the methodology of our research. A third section will present the results. The error rates that were measured for the birthdate is low (0.75%), although it is higher than the 0.21% score that we observed for the baseline (reference sources). In a fourth section, the results are discussed.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

Bots vs. Wikipedians, Anons vs. Logged-Ins (Redux): A Global Study of Edit Activity on Wikipedia and Wikidata

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Wikipedia Track

Title: Bots vs. Wikipedians, Anons vs. Logged-Ins (Redux): A Global Study of Edit Activity on Wikipedia and Wikidata

Authors: Thomas Steiner

Abstract: Wikipedia is a global crowdsourced encyclopedia that at time of writing is available in 287 languages. Wikidata is a likewise global crowdsourced knowledge base that provides shared facts to be used by Wikipedias. In the context of this research, we have developed an application and an underlying Application Programming Interface (API) capable of monitoring realtime edit activity of all language versions of Wikipedia and Wikidata. This application allows us to easily analyze edits in order to answer questions such as “Bots vs. Wikipedians, who edits more?”, “Which is the most anonymously edited Wikipedia?”, or “Who are the bots and what do they edit?”. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such an analysis was done for Wikidata and for really all Wikipedias—large and small. According to our results, all Wikipedias and Wikidata together are edited by about 50% bots and by about 23% anonymous users. Wikidata alone accounts for about 48% of the totally observed edits. If we do not consider Wikidata, i.e., if we only look at all Wikipedias, about 15% of all edits are made by bots and 26% of all edits are made by anonymous users. Overall, we found a stabilizing number of 274 active bots during our observation period. Our application is available publicly online at the URL http://wikipedia-edits.herokuapp.com/, its code has been open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 license.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

Wikidata: How We Brought Structured Data to Wikipedia

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Keynotes / Invited Talks, OpenSym 2014

OpenSym 2014 is proud to announce one of the conference’s invited talks!

Title: Wikidata: How We Brought Structured Data to Wikipedia

Speaker: Daniel Kinzler and Lydia Pintscher of Wikimedia e.V.

Abstract: Over the last two years we have been developing Wikidata and build up a community around it. Wikidata is Wikimedia’s central repository for structured data. This is the place where data, like the number of inhabitants of a country, is stored and made accessible to humans and computers alike. The data is used across all 287 language editions of Wikipedia and its sister projects as well as in projects outside of Wikimedia. In this talk we will take a look at how we developed Wikidata, what great tools are being built on top of it and what is in store for the future.

Biographies: Daniel Kinzler is the lead developer of the Wikidata project at Wikimedia Germany. He has been active on Wikipedia since 2004 and contributed to MediaWiki since 2005. He has a diploma in Informatics with a thesis about data extraction from Wikipedia.

Lydia Pintscher studied computer science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and is the product manager of Wikidata at Wikimedia Germany. She has been with the Wikidata project since its beginning and is passionate about all things Free Culture. In her other life she is a board member of KDE e.V. and editor of Open Advice.

Information Evolution in Wikipedia

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Wikipedia Track

Title: Information Evolution in Wikipedia

Authors: Ujwal Gadiraju, Mihai Georgescu, Marco Fisichella, Andrea Ceroni, Kaweh Djafari Naini

Abstract: The Web of data is constantly evolving based on the dynamics of its content. Current Web search engine technologies consider static collections and do not factor in explicitly or implicitly available temporal information, that can be leveraged to gain insights into the dynamics of the data. In this paper, we hypothesize that by employing the temporal aspect as the primary means for capturing the evolution of entities, it is possible to provide entity-based accessibility to Web archives. We empirically show that the edit activity on Wikipedia can be exploited to provide evidence of the evolution of Wikipedia pages over time, both in terms of their content and in terms of their temporally defined relationships, classified in literature as events. Finally, we present results from our extensive analysis of a dataset consisting of 31, 998 Wikipedia pages describing politicians, and observations from in-depth case studies. Our findings reflect the usefulness of leveraging temporal information in order to study the evolution of entities and breed promising grounds for further research.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

On Influences Between Software Standards and Their Implementations in Open Source Projects: Experiences from RDFa and Its Implementation in Drupal

Announcement, Conference Contributions, F/L/OSS Track, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: On Influences Between Software Standards and Their Implementations in Open Source Projects: Experiences from RDFa and Its Implementation in Drupal

Authors: Björn Lundell (University of Skövde), Jonas Gamalielsson (University of Skövde), Alexander Grahn (University of Skövde), Jonas Feist (RedBridge AB), Tomas Gustavsson (PrimeKey Solutions AB), Henrik Strindberg (Findwise AB)

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that standards implemented in open source software can reduce the risk for lock-in, improve interoperability, and promote competition on the market. However, there is limited knowledge concerning the relationship between standards and their implementations in open source software. This paper reports from an investigation of influences between software standards and open source software implementations of software standards. The study focuses on the RDFa standard and its implementation in the Drupal project. Specifically, issues in the W3C issue trackers for RDFa and the Drupal issue tracker for RDFa have been analysed. Findings show that there is clear evidence of reciprocal action between RDFa and its implementation in Drupal. The study contributes novel insights concerning effective processes for development and long-term maintenance of software standards and their implementations in open source projects.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

Rhizome and Wikipedia: A Humanities Based Approach Towards a Structural Explanation of the Namespace

Announcement, Conference Contributions, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Posters, Research Tracks, Wikipedia Track

Title: Rhizome and Wikipedia: A Humanities Based Approach Towards a Structural Explanation of the Namespace

Authors: Stephan Ligl

Abstract: In this paper, I describe the similarities between the rhizome according to Deleuze and Guattari with their six principles and the wikipedia’s main namespace on the one hand and the principles of a botanical rhizome and wikipedia’s main namespace on the other hand and try to compare them.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

Not Only for Ideation, But Also for Signaling: Incorporating User-Profile-Webpages into Virtual Ideas Communities

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, Open Innovation Track, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: Not Only for Ideation, But Also for Signaling: Incorporating User-Profile-Webpages into Virtual Ideas Communities

Authors: Ulrich Bretschneider, Philipp Ebel, Shkodran Zogaj, Jan Marco Leimeister

Abstract: This research-in-progress-paper describes the case of SAPiens, which is a Virtual Ideas Community (VIC). Typically, SAPiens – and VICs in general – focuses solely on supporting the ideation interactions among members. There is evidence from a survey that SAPiens members are also interested in actively signaling competences, experiences and skills to third parties. However, SAPiens does not offer IT functionalities that would allow for such a signaling. Against this backdrop, we propose to enrich SAPiens through User Profile Webpages allowing SAPiens members to construct a public profile within the community and thereby to signal individual capabilities, skills and experiences. The aim of this action design research is to design such an IT artifact by building on the signaling theory. After this initial design, our research constitutes a circular process of constant refinement as well as piloting and evaluation of the IT artifact in the real world setting of the SAPiens VIC.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

From Mashup Applications to Open Data Ecosystem

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, Open Data Track, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: From Mashup Applications to Open Data Ecosystem

Authors: Timo Aaltonen (Tampere University of Technology), Tommi Mikkonen (Tampere University of Technology), Heikki Peltola (Tampere University of Technology), Arto Salminen (Tampere University of Technology)

Abstract: Web-based software is available all over the world instantly after the online release. Applications can be used and updated without need to install anything, with natural support for collaboration, which allows users to interact and share the same applications over the Web. In addition, numerous web services allowing users to upload, download, store and modify private and public resources have emerged. However, as the amount of web services and devices used to consume as well as generate data has exploded, it is difficult to access and manage relevant data. In this paper, we start from the principles of mashups, reflect their use to the concepts of software ecosystems, and finally extend the discussion to open data generated by users themselves. As a technical contribution, we also introduce our proof-of-concept implementation of a mashup system built on wellness data, and discuss the main lessons we have learned in the process.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

Utilization and Development Contribution of Open Source Software in Japanese IT Companies: An Exploratory Study of the Effect on Business Growth

Announcement, Conference Contributions, F/L/OSS Track, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: Utilization and Development Contribution of Open Source Software in Japanese IT Companies: An Exploratory Study of the Effect on Business Growth

Authors: Terutaka Tansho (Shimane University, Japan), Tetsuo Noda (Shimane University, Japan)

Abstract: The usage of Open Source Software (OSS) has been more general these days and OSS are utilized in a wide range of business fields not only IT industries. Behind the expansion, there exist OSS development communities, where voluntary engineers dedicate their time and effort for the improvement. Considering development engineers in the companies as input resources, it is important to investigate the output of business growth. In this study, we conducted questionnaire survey to Japanese IT companies in 2013, and then analyzed the present state and relation between OSS utilization and development contribution. Our study revealed that Japanese IT companies are rather free riders of OSS, the volume of development contributions are far less than that of utilization. With regard to the effect on the business growth, the results of correlation analysis implicate that OSS utilization is related to the sales growth in the present term and that development contribution is related to the future growth of the employee number in the company. In order to explore the direct effect on the business growth, we constructed the models of multiple-logistic and logistic analyses, however, no direct and explicit determinants are found from the results of the analyses. Our research endeavors to investigate the OSS effect on the business growth are still on the way, but it is meaningful to provide the present state in numbers and hopefully this will lay some foundation for further study in this field.

This contribution to OpenSym 2014 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2014 proceedings on or after August 27, 2014.

How You Run a Meeting Says a Lot About Your Values: Participatory Practices for Open Communities

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Keynotes / Invited Talks, OpenSym 2014

OpenSym 2014 is proud to announce one of the conference’s invited talks!

Title: How You Run a Meeting Says a Lot About Your Values: Participatory Practices for Open Communities

Speaker: Laura Hilliger and Michelle Thorne, both of the Mozilla Foundation

Abstract: Live events are some of the best ways to see the power dynamics and philosophical bent of a community. Many communities, open and closed, glorify sitting in a darkened room and being inspired by a sage on the stage. And then there are events about participation: making and learning with fellow participants around shared passions and interests. The session argues for the use of participatory methods at events as a way to manifest open values. We’ll unpack some techniques and case studies, as well as practice ourselves.

Biography: Michelle Thorne is the Senior Director of Mozilla’s global Webmaker Mentor program. She trains communities of geeks, educators, makers and passionate people who want to help others learn not just to consume the web, but to make it. Through mentoring, live events and connectivist learning, she helps people level up their web literacies. Thorne embraces the spirit of “less yak, more hack” and believe that making drives learning and deeper participation. She organizes Mozilla’s largest public-facing event, the Mozilla Festival, which takes place in London. Previously, Thorne was the International Project Manager at Creative Commons, coordinating teams in over seventy countries (jurisdictions) worldwide to localize Creative Commons tools and to promote legal sharing and Free Culture. She co-organized the Free Culture Research Conference, an academic event dedicated to exploring the commons and hybrid economies.