Category Archives: Proceedings

Monitoring the Gender Gap with Wikidata Human Gender Indicators

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

Title: Monitoring the Gender Gap with Wikidata Human Gender Indicators

Authors: Maximilian Klein (GroupLens Research), Harsh Gupta, Vivek Rai (Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur), Piotr Konieczny (Hanyang University) and Haiyi Zhu (GroupLens Research)

Abstract: The gender gap in Wikipedia’s content, specifically in the representation of women in biographies, is well-known but has been difficult to measure. Furthermore the impacts of efforts to address this gender gap have received little attention. To investigate we utilise Wikidata, the database that feeds Wikipedia, and introduce the “Wikidata Human Gender Indicators” (WHGI), a free and open source, longitudinal, biographical dataset monitoring gender disparities across time, space, culture, occupation and language. Through these lenses we show how the representation of women is changing along 11 dimensions. Validations of WHGI are presented against three exogenous datasets: the world’s historical population, “traditional” gender-disparity indices (GDI, GEI, GGGI and SIGI), and occupational gender according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Furthermore, to demonstrate its general use in research, we revisit previously published findings on Wikipedia’s gender bias that can be strengthened by WHGI.

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

Urban Data Platforms – An Overview

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Keynotes / Invited Talks, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings

Ina Schieferdecker of Fraunhofer FOKUS (Berlin), will be presenting the following keynote at OpenSym 2016:

Title: Urban Data Platforms – An Overview

Abstract: Along the increasing digitization and interconnection in almost every domain in society or business, data is growing exponentially. It is expected that the worldwide Internet traffic will triple until 2020 in comparison to 2015. In the same time, the transmitted data volume will move from 53,2 Exabytes per months to 161 Exabytes per months [Cisco, 2016]. Cities and communities can support the provisioning and usage of urban data and benefit from resulting new services for the monitoring, understanding, decision making, steering, and control. Providing urban data is also supported by the ongoing movement of opening governmental data, but goes beyond. Urban data can include data from public, industrial, scientific or private sources. Yet, the design of urban data is still ongoing and numerous initiatives and standardization efforts on smart cities and communities put the grounds for the uptake and interoperability of urban data.

Speaker’s Biography: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker is Director of Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, coordinates Open Data and ICT for Smart Cities at that institute and is also professor for Model-Driven Engineering and Quality Assurance of Software-Based Systems at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests include urban data platforms, critical infrastructures, networking, conformance, interoperability, security and certification. Schieferdecker received a PhD in electrical engineering from Technical University Berlin. She is President of the ASQF and member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), IEEE, ACM, and GI. She is member of the Nationale Plattform Zukunftsstadt, of the acatech Working Group Stadt der Zukunft, of the Smart City Network Berlin and of Fraunhofer Morgenstadt.

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

Out of Altruism or Because it Reads Well on the CV?: The Motivations for Participation in the Freifunk Community Compared to FLOSS

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

Title: Out of Altruism or Because it Reads Well on the CV?: The Motivations for Participation in the Freifunk Community Compared to FLOSS

Authors: Lyudmila Vaseva (Freie Universitaet Berlin)

Abstract: Motivation of free, libre and open source software developers has been widely studied over the years. The reasons people engage in this seemingly altruistic behavior have been elaborated and classified. The present work addresses a slightly different issue: what motivates individuals to participate in community network projects? Are the reasons similar to or quite distinct from these relevant to contributors to free software? Based on recently conducted interviews with community network activists from the Germany based project Freifunk and established FLOSS motivation research, we will analyse the specifics of the Freifunk project and the factors which spur its members to action. The obtained insights could then hopefully be used to understand the underlying group processes and help build sustainable communities.

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

Evaluating Open Collaboration Opportunities in the Fire Service with FireCrowd

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

Title: Evaluating Open Collaboration Opportunities in the Fire Service with FireCrowd

Authors: Eleanor R. Burgess (University College London) and Aaron Shaw (Northwestern University)

Abstract: In emergency response organizations like the fire service, personnel require easy access to reliable, up-to-date safety protocols. Systems for creating and managing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) within these command and control organizations are often rigid, inaccessible, and siloed. Open collaboration systems like wikis and social computing tools have the potential to address these limitations, but have not been analyzed for intra-organizational use in emergency services. In response to a request from the Fire Protection Research Foundation (FPRF) we evaluated a high-fidelity open collaboration system prototype, FireCrowd, that was designed to manage SOPs within the U.S. fire service. We use the prototype as a technology probe and apply human-centered design methods in a suburban fire department in the Chicago area. We find that organizational factors would inhibit the adoption of some open collaboration practices and identify points in current practices that offer opportunities for open collaboration in the future.

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

Politics of Cooption in Free and Open Communities

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Keynotes / Invited Talks, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings

Bradley Kuhn of Software Freedom Conservancy, will be presenting the following keynote at OpenSym 2016:

Title: Politics of Cooption in Free and Open Communities

Abstract: Developing software where all users have equal freedom to share, copy, modify and redistribute the software – in a community where all participants are equal – was once an odd fringe activity and cause only of interest to a small group of radical software developers. Today, this mechanism of sharing and collaboration is widely adopted not only by the software industry as a whole, but also by communities doing other collaborative work in areas as wide ranged as developing online encyclopedias, performing astrophysics research, and sharing information about users’ favorite television programs.

As “Open Source” has become a fad, it has been integrated into the larger culture. Furthermore, the software freedom movement has undeniably entered a period of cooption by for-profit companies who seek to exploit the benefits of these sharing communities, but do not necessarily wish to engage as equals with the individual hobbyists who build and foster those communities.

This talk, given by a practitioner who works daily in the politics of software freedom, will explore the current state of this political cooption, anecdotally examine how the political environment has begun to influence the structure of Open Source and Free Software projects, and consider whether these forces are likely to influence other non-software communities who have adopted the methodologies and principles of software freedom for their own work.

Speaker’s Biography: Bradley M. Kuhn is the President and Distinguished Technologist at Software Freedom Conservancy, on the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and editor-in-chief of copyleft.org. Kuhn began his work in the software freedom movement as a volunteer in 1992, when he became an early adopter of the GNU/Linux operating system, and began contributing to various Free Software projects. He worked during the 1990s as a system administrator and software developer for various companies, and taught AP Computer Science at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. Kuhn’s non-profit career began in 2000, when he was hired by the FSF. As FSF’s Executive Director from 2001-2005, Kuhn led FSF’s GPL enforcement, launched its Associate Member program, and invented the Affero GPL. Kuhn was appointed President of Software Freedom Conservancy in April 2006, was Conservancy’s primary volunteer from 2006–2010, and has been a full-time staffer since early 2011. Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in Computer Science from Loyola University in Maryland, and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Cincinnati. Kuhn’s Master’s thesis discussed methods for dynamic interoperability of Free Software programming languages. Kuhn received the O’Reilly Open Source Award in 2012, in recognition for his lifelong policy work on copyleft licensing. Kuhn has a blog, is on pump.io and co-hosts the audcast, Free as in Freedom.

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

Investigating teachers’ practices of using games in school: A pattern-based approach

Announcement, Conference Contributions, Open Educational Resources Track, OpenSym 2016, Proceedings, Research Contributions, Research Tracks, Short Research Papers

Title: Investigating teachers’ practices of using games in school: A pattern-based approach

Authors: Triinu Jesmin and Tobias Ley (Tallinn University)

Abstract: We introduce teachers’ practice patterns as a possible way to enhance knowledge building about game use in schools. We developed patterns through critical incident interviews with 15 Estonian school teachers and validated them in an online forum. We present the patterns, experiences around employing the approach for knowledge building and report some general themes on game use in schools that have emerged from this work.

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

A Leader-Driven Open Collaboration Platform for Exploring New Domains

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

Title: A Leader-Driven Open Collaboration Platform for Exploring New Domains

Authors: Michael Weiss, Ibrahim AbuAlhaol and Mohamed Amin (Carleton University)

Abstract: This paper describes the design and initial evaluation of a leader-driven open collaboration platform for exploring new domains. The goal of this platform is to enable the collaboration of subject matter experts across knowledge boundaries. Traditionally, new domains are explored from within a single specialist or a focused group perspective. However, this often introduces bias. Collaboration helps reduce such bias by providing access to a broader range of information sources, increasing the chances for producing new insights in a new domain. However, it also introduces a new problem: variance between the contributions made. Variance makes it difficult to produce a coherent document. In this paper, we derive propositions about how leader-driven open collaboration is expected to help reduce bias while containing variance. We also offer an initial evaluation of these propositions based on our observations from developing an initial prototype of the open collaboration platform.

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

Supporting Cyber Resilience with Semantic Wiki

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

Title: Supporting Cyber Resilience with Semantic Wiki

Authors: Riku Nykänen and Tommi Kärkkäinen (University of Jyväskylä)

Abstract: Cyber resilient organizations, their functions and computing infrastructures, should be tolerant towards rapid and unexpected changes in the environment. Information security is an organization-wide common mission; whose success strongly depends on efficient knowledge sharing. For this purpose, semantic wikis have proved their strength as a flexible collaboration and knowledge sharing platforms. However, there has not been notable academic research on how semantic wikis could be used as information security management platform in organizations for improved cyber resilience. In this paper, we propose to use semantic wiki as an agile information security management platform. More precisely, the wiki contents are based on the structured model of the NIST Special Publication 800-53 information security control catalogue that is extended in the research with the additional properties that support the information security management and especially the security control implementation. We present common uses cases to manage the information security in organizations and how the use cases can be implemented using the semantic wiki platform. As organizations seek cyber resilience, where focus is in the availability of cyber related assets and services, we extend the control selection with option to focus on availability. The results of the study show that a semantic wiki based information security management and collaboration platform can provide a cost-efficient solution for improved cyber resilience, especially for small and medium sized organizations that struggle to develop information security with the limited resources.

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

Enabling team collaboration with task management tools

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

Title: Enabling team collaboration with task management tools

Authors: Dimitra Chasanidou, Brian Elvesæter, and Arne-Jørgen Berre (SINTEF ICT)

Abstract: Project and task management tools aim to support remote or face-to-face collaboration. Despite the growing needs for these tools, little is known about how they are utilized in practice. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study using UpWave, a task management tool, and the ways that it enables team collaboration. The group interviewees utilize UpWave for their collaborations and report on its features in terms of use, best practices, motivations and rewards for users to encourage their collaboration. This paper concludes that project and task management tools offer new possibilities for collaborations; it also makes suggestions for using such tools in teams. This study’s future work will include a mixed-methods approach to gain a greater understanding of the tools’ effects in various collaboration settings.

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

Mining team characteristics to predict Wikipedia article quality

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

Title: Mining team characteristics to predict Wikipedia article quality

Authors: Grace Gimon Betancourt, Armando Segnini, Carlos Trabuco, Amira Rezgui and Nicolas Jullien (Télécom Bretagne)

Abstract: In this study, we were interested in studying which characteristics of virtual teams are good predictors for the quality of their production. The experiment involved obtaining the Spanish Wikipedia database dump and applying different data mining techniques sui- table for large data sets to label the whole set of articles according to their quality (comparing them with the Featured/Good Articles, or FA/GA). Then we created the attributes that describe the characteristics of the team who produced the articles and using decision tree methods, we obtained the most relevant characteristics of the teams that produced FA/GA. The team’s maximum efficiency and the total length of contribution are the most important predictors. This article contributes to the literature on virtual team organization.

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