Category Archives: Proceedings

Large Scale, Open Cognitive Collaboration of Distributed Crowds

Announcement, OpenSym 2015, Proceedings

Title: Large Scale, Open Cognitive Collaboration of Distributed Crowds

Authors: Bei Yan (Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California)

Abstract: Drawing on communication, sociology and social psychology theories, my research focuses on large scale, open cognitive collaboration of distributed crowds. I study how individuals interact and collaborate with each other via mediated communication channels, applying social network analysis, conducting online experiments and utilizing big data dumps of online communities, such as Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, Github and Threadless.com.

This contribution to OpenSym 2015 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2015 proceedings (or companion) on or after August 19, 2015.

The Evolution of A Digital Ecosystem

Announcement, OpenSym 2015, Proceedings

Title: The Evolution of A Digital Ecosystem

Authors: Sungyong Um (Fox School of Business, Temple University)

Abstract: I am studying the evolution of digital ecosystem, which is characterized as an ongoing recombination of heterogeneous digital components such as Application Programming Interface (API) provided by firms including a focal platform owner. I am focusing on the all versions of 23,985 WordPress plug-ins’ source codes from 2004 to 2014. A generative model of network is applied to capture how network centrality and the hierarchical order of sub-network in a network change over time. The studies observe the distinct pattern of the co-evolution of digital ecosystems compared to other open systems.

This contribution to OpenSym 2015 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2015 proceedings (or companion) on or after August 19, 2015.

Software Patents: A Replication Study

Announcement, OpenSym 2015, Proceedings

Title: Software Patents: A Replication Study

Authors: Germán Poo-Caamaño, Daniel M. German (University of Victoria)

Abstract: Previous research has documented the legal and economic aspects of software patents. To study the evolution in the granting of software patents we reproduced and extended part of the empirical study on software patents conducted by Bessen and Hunt. The original study established a criteria to identify software patents, and provided a look at the evolution of patents granted until 2002. We present a simple approach to retrieve patents from the full text database provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which is freely accessible. We also present the evolution of software patents since the original study, and which we also present separated by major technological firms. Our research shows a continuous increase in the number of software patents granted higher, both in number of patents granted (in absolute numbers) and in proportion of overall patents (in relative terms). The relevance of studying the evolution of software patents relies in the challenges to find prior-art, either for practitioners looking for patenting as well as for examiners evaluating granting a new patent.

This contribution to OpenSym 2015 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2015 proceedings (or companion) on or after August 19, 2015.

A multiple case study of small free software businesses as social entrepreneurships

Announcement, OpenSym 2015, Proceedings, Uncategorized

Title: A multiple case study of small free software businesses as social entrepreneurships

Authors: Ann Barcomb (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg)

Abstract: Free/libre and open source software are frequently described as a single community or movement. The difference between free software and open source ideology may influence founders, resulting in different types of companies being created. Specifically, the relationship between free/libre software ideology and social entrepreneurships is investigated. This paper presents seven case studies of businesses, five of which were founded by people who identify with the free/libre software movement. The result is a theory that small businesses founded by free/libre software advocates have three characteristics of social entrepreneurships. First, social benefit is prioritized over wealth creation. Second, the business’s social mission is not incidental but is furthered through its for-profit activities, rather than supported by the company’s profits. Third, the company’s success is defined in part by the success of its social mission. Free/libre software entrepreneurs who recognize their activities as social entrepreneurships can benefit from the existing literature on the unique challenges faced by socially-oriented businesses.

This contribution to OpenSym 2015 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2015 proceedings (or companion) on or after August 19, 2015.

On the openness of digital platforms/ecosystems

Announcement, OpenSym 2015, Proceedings

Title: On the openness of digital platforms/ecosystems

Authors: Jose Teixeira, Turku School of Economics (University of Turku)

Abstract: A plenitude of technology is neither developed in-house nor simply outsourced in dyadic relationships. Instead, we are in a new age where technologies are developed by a networked community of actors and organizations, which base their relations dynamically to each other on a common interest. Such dynamic and networked complexity of technology development is often theoretical explored around the concept of platform, and more recently by employing the concept of ecosystem in an analogy to natural ecosystems. Following the success of open-source software, academics have long been examining openness in digital platforms/ecosystems; however most contributions take the perspective of a single stakeholder from the many that constitute a digital platform/ecosystem. Predominantly, they take the sole perspective of platform providers, those bundling hardware and software or more rarely, the perspective of third-party software developers developing valuable software ‘apps’ that add value to the overall platform. In this conceptual article, we grasp openness more holistically, both by acknowledging that openness means different things to different people and involve all stakeholders within the platforms/ecosystems. Towards the development of a theory of openness within digital settings, we propose six novel aspects of openness for enabling a greater understanding of the open-source software movement with a digital platforms/ecosystems perspective. Moreover, we invite scholars to reconsider the more predominating product-dominant logic in open-source software research to a more holistic logic embracing platforms and ecosystem thinking.

This contribution to OpenSym 2015 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2015 proceedings (or companion) on or after August 19, 2015.

The Vienna History Wiki – a Collaborative Knowledge Platform for the City of Vienna

Announcement, OpenSym 2015, Proceedings

Title: The Vienna History Wiki – a Collaborative Knowledge Platform for the City of Vienna

Authors: Bernhard Krabina (KDZ – Centre for Public Administration Research)

Abstract: The Vienna City Archive and the Vienna City Library have joined forces with several other institutions in Vienna, Austria to create the “Wien Geschichte Wiki” (Vienna History Wiki), a knowledge platform for the history of Vienna with more than 34,000 articles and 120,000 visits per month. The wiki is powered by Semantic MediaWiki and serves not only as an online encyclopedia, based on a digitized printed publication for everybody to use and contribute to, but also as a central knowledge base for several administrative departments of the city administration. In a peer-review process, wiki edits are checked before they become visible. The paper highlights the unique aspects of the Vienna History Wiki related to content creation, governance structures and technology choices. A usage log analysis and an online survey have been carried out to gain first insights after six months of operation.

This contribution to OpenSym 2015 will be made available as part of the OpenSym 2015 proceedings (or companion) on or after August 19, 2015.

Posted Academic and Other Historic Data

Announcement, General, Proceedings

As part of an on-going discussion on academic transparency and openness, we have decided to publish the historic academic data (no. submissions, acceptance rate, etc.) for WikiSym, now OpenSym. Please find it on the Historic Data page. This data has always been made available as part of the foreword to each year’s proceedings, but now it is available at one glance and not hidden away in some archive.

We intend to ensure a high quality of publications (which implies selectivity). We believe that the combination of a high quality of community events at OpenSym (workshops, tutorials, panels, demos, etc.) together with a high-quality academic program is the way to go to keep building a vibrant community at the conference. We believe this will support the scope extension from the more narrow WikiSym to the broader OpenSym in 2014.

OpenSym Impact Factor, Metrics, etc.

Announcement, OpenSym 2014, Proceedings

The renaming of WikiSym to OpenSym and the scope extension from “everything wiki” to “everything open” has invalidated various metrics of scholarly assessment and so we wanted to ask your opinion on how to position the revamped conference.

In the past, WikiSym was a computer science conference. The influx of Wikipedia researchers has benefitted the conference and the community and extended our scope. Still, WikiSym had a strong computer science focus. The expected influx of open access, open data, open source, open educational resources, open innovation, etc. research will further sharpen the profile of the conference. We certainly won’t be a pure computer science conference any longer.

Continue reading OpenSym Impact Factor, Metrics, etc. →

Posters Preview

Proceedings, WikiSym 2011

Last but not least, the posters session will feature the 15 posters listed below, along with 8 more from the doctoral consortium selectees, with authors available and excited to chat with you about their work. See the schedule for details on when and where to go.

  • Wikipedia Category Visualization Using Radial Layout. Robert P. Biuk-Aghai and Felix Hon Hou Cheang.
  • Wiki Refactoring: an Assisted Approach Based on Ballots. Oscar Diaz, Gorka Puente, and Cristóbal Arellano.
  • Visualizing Author Contribution Statistics in Wikis Using an Edit Significance Metric. Peter Kin-Fong Fong and Robert P. Biuk-Aghai.
  • The Center for Open Learning and Teaching. Pete Forsyth and Robert E. Cummings.
  • “G1: Patent nonsense”: Participation and Outcomes in Wikipedia’s Article Deletion Processes. R. Stuart Geiger and Heather Ford.
  • Wiki Architectures as Social Translucence Enablers. Stephanie Gokhman, David Mcdonald, and Mark Zachry.
  • Failures of Social Production: Evidence from Wikipedia. Andreea Gorbatai.
  • TWiki: A collaboration tool for the Large Hadron Collider. Peter Jones and Nils Hoimyr.
  • A Scourge to the Pillar of Neutrality: A WikiProject Fighting Systemic Bias. Randall Livingstone.
  • Places on the Map and in the Cloud: Representations of Locality and Geography in Wikipedia. Randall Livingstone.
  • Exploring Linguistic Points of View of Wikipedia. Paolo Massa and Federico Scrinzi.
  • Personality Traits, Feedback Mechanisms and their Impact on Motivation to Contribute to Wikis in Higher Education. Athanasios Mazarakis and Clemens Van Dinther.
  • CoSyne: a Framework for Multilingual Content Synchronization of Wikis. Christof Monz, Vivi Nastase, Matteo Negri, Angela Fahrni, Yashar Mehdad, and Michael Strube.
  • Incentivizing the ASL-STEM Forum. Kyle Rector, Richard Ladner, and Michelle Shepardson.
  • Wiki as Business Application Platform: The MES Showcase. Christoph Sauer.

Demos Preview

Proceedings, WikiSym 2011

The demos session will feature four awesome demonstrations. See the schedule for details on when and where to go.

Wikiotics: The Interactive Language Instruction Wiki

Ian Sullivan, James R. Garrison, Matthew Curinga

While most existing wiki systems are geared toward editing text documents, we have built Wikiotics to enable the collaborative creation of interactive multimedia materials most needed in language instruction. In our demonstration, we will show several types of interactive lessons that can be created from simple multimedia elements. We will also show the lesson creation/editing interfaces and how our smart phone app can simplify the process of capturing local media and integrating that new media into existing lessons.

PukiWiki-Java Connector, a Simple API for Saving Data of Java Programs on a Wiki

Takashi Yamanoue, Kentaro Oda, Koichi Shimozono

Experimental implementation of SDK for Java Programs, PukiWiki-Java Connector, which makes an illusion that wiki pages as persistent data store, is shown. A Java program of them can be running on a wiki page and it can save its data on the page. The Java program consists of PukiWiki which is a popular wiki in Japan, the plug-in which starts up Java Applets. A Java Applet with default access privilege cannot store its data at the local host. We have constructed the API for the applets to ease data persistent at a remote host. We also combined the API and the wiki system by introducing a wiki plugin and tags for starting up Java Applets. Applet generated persistent data resides in wiki texts side by side. We have successfully ported useful programs such as a simple text editor, a simple music editor, a simple draw program and programming environments in a PukiWiki system using this connector.

Collaborative Video Editing for Wikipedia

Michael Dale

Collaborative video for Wikipedia faces several challenges from social and community adoption to technology limitations. This presentation explores how each of these problems are being addressed. The presentation focuses on building a collaborative educational video community and how the html5 technology platform has evolved to better support rich media applications such as HTML5 video editing in the browser and standardization around the royalty free WebM video format. Finally we propose a in-browser collaborative video sequencer to enable broad participation in video editing within Wikimedia projects.

Wiki4EAM – Using Hybrid Wikis for Enterprise Architecture Management

Florian Matthes, Christian Neubert

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is a challenging task, modern enterprises have to face. This task is often addressed via heavy-weight and expensive EAM tools to collect, structure, visualize and analyze architectural information. A major problem in EAM is the mismatch between the existing unstructured information sources and the rigid information structures and collaboration mechanisms provided by today’s EAM tools.

To address this mismatch, researchers at Technische Universität München established in 2010 a community of experienced enterprise architects from 25 large German enterprises to pursue a different, wiki-based approach to EAM. The idea is to start with existing unstructured information sources captured as wiki pages (e.g., derived from Office documents) and then to incrementally and collaboratively enrich the wiki pages with attributes, types and integrity rules as needed for architecture modeling, visualization and analysis.

An off-the shelf commercial enterprise wiki (Tricia by infoAsset AG) provides the required incremental information structuring capabilities as so-called Hybrid Wikis. Customizable in-browser visualizations are provided by the System Cartography Tool developed at Technische Universität München.