Category Archives: Full Research Papers

A Sector-Selection Methodology for Living Labs Implementation

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, Open Innovation Track, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: A Sector-Selection Methodology for Living Labs Implementation

Author: Dr Ir Robert VISEUR (CETIC)

Abstract: Creative Wallonia is a framework program that puts creativity and innovation at the heart of the redevelopment of Wallonia. In the context of Creative Wallonia, the Walloon government has decided to study the implementation of Living Lab pilot projects in Wallonia. The initiators required to identify two sectors in which the pilot phase could be addressed and conducted. This paper is dedicated to the sector selection methodology that was developed for the implementation of the Walloon Living Lab pilot projects. The paper is organized in three sections. In the first section we search for the criteria that could be used to select appropriate sectors. In the second section we present the developed methodology and the selection grid based on criteria. In the third section we discuss the grid and the results after application to the Walloon call for pilot projects. The contribution of the research consists in a methodology that allows to objectivize the choice of sectors that will be applied to the future Living Lab projects. Finally, a preliminary feedback about the living labs implementation is discussed.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

Operation Digital Chameleon – Towards an Open Cybersecurity Method

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Title: Operation Digital Chameleon – Towards an Open Cybersecurity Method

Authors: Andreas Rieb and Ulrike Lechner (Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany)

Abstract: In the Serious Game Operation Digital Chameleon red and blue teams develop attack and defense strategies to explore IT-Security of Critical Infrastructures as part of an IT-Security training. Operation Digital Chameleon is the training game of the IT- Security Matchplay series in the IT-Security for Critical Infrastructure research program funded by BMBF. We present the design of Operation Digital Chameleon in its current form as well as results from game #3. We analyze the potential and innovation capability of Operation Digital Chameleon as an Open Innovation method for the domain of IT-Security of Critical Infrastructures. We find that Operation Digital Chamaeleon facilitates creativity, opens the process of IT-Security strategy development and – despite being designed for training purposes – opens the process to explore innovative attack vectors.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

An Empirical Evaluation of Property Recommender Systems for Wikidata and Collaborative Knowledge Bases

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Wikipedia Track

Title: An Empirical Evaluation of Property Recommender Systems for Wikidata and Collaborative Knowledge Bases

Authors: Eva Zangerle, Wolfgang Gassler, Martin Pichl, Stefan Steinhauser, Günther Specht (University of Innsbruck)

Abstract: The Wikidata platform is a crowdsourced, structured knowledgebase aiming to provide integrated, free and languageagnostic facts which are amongst others used by Wikipedias. Users who actively enter, review and revise data on Wikidata are assisted by a property suggesting system which provides users with properties that might also be applicable to a given item. We argue that evaluating and subsequently improving this recommendation mechanism and hence, assisting users, can directly contribute to an even more integrated, consistent and extensive knowledge base serving a huge variety of applications. However, the quality and usefulness of such recommendations has not been evaluated yet. In this work, we provide the first evaluation of different approaches aiming to provide users with property recommendations in the process of curating information on Wikidata. We compare the approach currently facilitated on Wikidata with two state-of-the-art recommendation approaches stemming from the field of RDF recommender systems and collaborative information systems. Further, we also evaluate hybrid recommender systems combining these approaches. Our evaluations show that the current recommendation algorithm works well in regards to recall and precision, reaching a recall@7 of 79.71% and a precision@7 of 27.97%. We also find that generally, incorporating contextual as well as classifying information into the computation of property recommendations can further improve its performance significantly.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

Evaluating and Improving Navigability of Wikipedia: A Comparative Study of Eight Language Editions

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Wikipedia Track

Title: Evaluating and Improving Navigability of Wikipedia: A Comparative Study of Eight Language Editions

Authors: Daniel Lamprecht (KTI, Graz University of Technology), Dimitar Dimitrov (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences), Denis Helic (KTI, Graz University of Technology) and Markus Strohmaier (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and University of Koblenz-Landau)

Abstract: Wikipedia supports its users to reach a wide variety of goals: looking up facts, researching a topic, making an edit or simply browsing to pass time. Some of these goals, such as the lookup of facts, can be effectively supported by search functions. However, for other use cases such as researching an unfamiliar topic, users need to rely on the links to connect articles. In this paper, we investigate the state of navigability in the article networks of eight language versions of Wikipedia. We find that, when taking all links of articles into account, all language versions enable mutual reachability for almost all articles. However, previous research has shown that visitors of Wikipedia focus most of their attention on the areas located close to the top. We therefore investigate different restricted navigational views that users could have when looking at articles. We find that restricting the view of articles strongly limits the navigability of the resulting networks and impedes navigation. Based on this analysis we then propose a link recommendation method to augment the link network to improve navigability in the network. Our approach selects links from a less restricted view of the article and proposes to move these links into more visible sections. The recommended links are therefore relevant for the article. Our results are relevant for researchers interested in the navigability of Wikipedia and open up new avenues for link recommendations in Wikipedia editing.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

Predicting the quality of user contributions via LSTMs

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Wikis and Open Collaboration Track

Title: Predicting the quality of user contributions via LSTMs

Authors: Rakshit Agrawal and Luca de Alfaro (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Abstract: In many collaborative systems it is useful to automatically estimate the quality of new contributions; the estimates can be used for instance to flag contributions for review. To predict the quality of a contribution by a user, it is useful to take into account both the characteristics of the revision itself, and the past history of contributions by that user. In several approaches, the user’s history is first summarized into a number of features, such as number of contributions, user reputation, time from previous revision, and so forth. These features are then passed along with features of the current revision to a machine-learning classifier, which outputs a prediction for the user contribution. The summarization step is used because the usual machine learning models, such as neural nets, SVMs, etc. rely on a fixed number of input features.We show in this paper that this manual selection of summarization features can be avoided by adopting machine-learning approaches that are able to cope with temporal sequences of input.

In particular, we show that Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) neural nets are able to process directly the variable length history of a user’s activity in the system, and produce an output that is highly predictive of the quality of the next contribution by the user. Our approach does not eliminatethe process of feature selection, which is present in all machine learning. Rather, it eliminates the need for deciding which features from a user’s past are most useful for predicting the future: we can simply pass to the machine-learning apparatus all the past, and let it come up with an estimate for the quality of the next contribution.

We present models combining LSTM and NN for predicting revision quality and show that the prediction accuracy attained is far superior to the one obtained using the NN alone. More interestingly, we also show that the prediction attained is superior to the one obtained using user reputation as a feature summarizing the quality of a user’s past work. This can be explained by noting that the primary function of user reputation is to provide an incentive towards performing useful contributions, rather than to be a feature optimized for prediction of future contribution quality.

We also show that the LSTM output changes in a natural way in response to user behavior, increasing when the user performs a sequence of good quality contributions,and decreasing when the user performs a sequence of low-quality work. The LSTM output for a user could thus be usefully shown to other users, alongside the user’s reputation and other information.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

Differentiating Communication Styles of Leaders on the Linux Kernel Mailing List

Announcement, Conference Contributions, F/L/OSS Track, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: Differentiating Communication Styles of Leaders on the Linux Kernel Mailing List

Authors: Daniel Schneider, Scott Spurlock and Megan Squire (Elon University)

Abstract: Much communication between developers of free, libre, and open source software (FLOSS) projects happens on email mailing lists. Geographically and temporally dispersed development teams use email as an asynchronous, centralized, persistently stored institutional memory for sharing code samples, discussing bugs, and making decisions. Email is especially important to large, mature projects, such as the Linux kernel, which has thousands of developers and a multilayered leadership structure. In this paper, we collect and analyze data to understand the communication patterns in such a community. How do the leaders of the Linux Kernel project write in email? What are the salient features of their writing, and can we discern one leader from another? We find that there are clear written markers for two leaders who have been particularly important to recent discussions of leadership style on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): Linux Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman. Furthermore, we show that it is straightforward to use a machine learning strategy to automatically differentiate these two leaders based on their writing. Our findings will help researchers understand how this community works, and why there is occasional controversy regarding differences in communication styles on the LKML.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

Motivation of Newcomers to FLOSS Projects

Announcement, Conference Contributions, F/L/OSS Track, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks

Title: Motivation of Newcomers to FLOSS Projects

Authors: Christoph Hannebauer and Volker Gruhn (paluno – The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology University of Duisburg-Essen)

Abstract: While the motivations of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) developers have been the subject of extensive research, the motivations for their initial contribution to a FLOSS project has received only little attention. This survey of 94 newcomers to the FLOSS projects Mozilla and GNOME identifies the motivations for the modification of the FLOSS components and for the submission of these modifications back to the FLOSS project. With the responses, we test a hypothesis based on the previous qualitative research on newcomer motivations: Most newcomers modify a component because they need the modification for themselves. Surprisingly, this is not the case for our respondents, who have a variety of primary modification motivations. Newcomer occupation is discussed as a reason for this difference to previous results.

This contribution to OpenSym 2016 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2016 proceedings on or after August 17, 2016.

Structured Wikis – Application Oriented Use Cases

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Full Research Papers, OpenSym 2014, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Wikis and Open Collaboration Track

Title: Structured Wikis – Application Oriented Use Cases

Authors: Stefan Voigt, Frank Fuchs-Kittowski, Andreas Gohr

Abstract: Structured wikis combine the flexibility advantage of traditional wikis with the possibility of presenting structures and relationships in a partly automated fashion. Such wikis can, for example, map process structures and thus support complex processes. Taking the ICKEwiki as an example, this paper examines the differences between traditional and structured wikis by presenting four different real-life sample cases.

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

Investigating Incentives for Students to Provide Peer Feedback in a Semi-Open Online Course: An Experimental Study

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

Title: Investigating Incentives for Students to Provide Peer Feedback in a Semi-Open Online Course: An Experimental Study

Authors: German Neubaum (University of Duisburg-Essen), Astrid Wichmann (Ruhr University Bochum), Sabrina C. Eimler (University of Duisburg-Essen), Nicole C. Krämer (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Abstract: In open online learning courses such as MOOCs, peer feedback has been regarded as a powerful method to give elaborated feedback on weekly assignments. Yet motivating students to invest effort in peer feedback on top of existing work load is difficult. Students might give insufficient feedback or do not give feedback at all. Students’ hesitation to provide feedback might be related to the lack of visibility of spent effort during feedback provision. Alternatively, students might provide less feedback due to lack of perceived benefits. In this study, we investigated the effect of two incentive types on peer feedback provision on weekly assignments. In total, 91 students enrolled in a semi-open online course were announced to receive either (1) a peer rating on their feedback or (2) open access to assignment solutions or (3) no incentive. Results indicate that the incentive type did not affect feedback provision in general, yet it had an impact on the content of the feedback. Students receiving (1) a rating-feedback incentive wrote longer and more specific feedback in comparison to students receiving (2) an information-access incentive or (3) no incentive. Results contribute to findings from peer assessment research that students are more likely to provide detailed feedback if students feel that feedback is attended to. Furthermore, results inform teachers and practitioners on how to encourage students to provide peer feedback in open learning environments.

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

Standing in Misunderstanding: Analyzing Boundary Objects’ Effectiveness in Innovation Communities

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

Title: Standing in Misunderstanding: Analyzing Boundary Objects’ Effectiveness in Innovation Communities

Authors: Marc Marheineke, Hagen Habicht

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the use of virtual objects for knowledge exchange in communities. Information systems provide a wide range of new (virtual) objects for community members which support non-canonical collaboration required for knowledge creation [4,23]. From a sociological perspective these objects are means to cross knowledge boundaries in communities [6]. In our study we extend this aspect by a technical perspective of how virtual objects effectively facilitate activities of knowledge creation. Media Synchronicity Theory [10] proposes how to best accomplish communication performance. It predicts that to achieve effective communication, the two primary communication strategies of conveyance of information and convergence on meaning need to be supported. Building upon this discussion, we examine the use of virtual objects in a dynamic process of knowledge creation. We will draw conclusions on how to appropriately use virtual objects for communication. Our empirical study is based on multiple cases [32] of knowledge communities. Qualitative data has been gathered from the participants of six focused group discussions conducted on a virtual whiteboard which comprises a media choice to interact in real time. The results detail information on the actual use (and not use) of virtual objects (media) for knowledge creation. Based on our findings we empirically confirm the core propositions of Media Synchronicity Theory. We conclude with managerial recommendations on how to employ virtual objects for increasing the effectiveness of dynamic processes of knowledge creation.

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