The International Symposium on Open Collaboration (2005-2022)

OpenSym News

OpenSym Impact Factor, Metrics, etc.

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.

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2013-11-23
The OpenSym 2014 Research Program Committee
The OpenSym 2014 research program is structured into research tracks, each of which is being handled by its own chair; please see below for the chairs and their calls for submissions (papers).

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Research

Chaired jointly by:
- Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona of Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
- Gregorio Robles of Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Call for submissions (papers)

Open Access Research

Chaired by:
- Anne Fitzgerald of Queensland University of Technology
Call for submissions (papers)

Open Data Research

Chaired by:
- Ina Schieferdecker of Fraunhofer FOKUS and Free University of Berlin
Call for submissions (papers)

Open Educational Resources Research

Chaired jointly by:
- Ulrike Cress of University of Tübingen
- Astrid Wichmann of Ruhr University Bochum
Call for submissions (papers)

IT-driven Open Innovation Research

Chaired by:
- Kathrin Möslein of Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg
Call for submissions (papers)

Wikipedia Research

Chaired by:
- Nicolas Jullien of Telecom Bretagne (University)
Call for submissions (papers)

Wikis and Open Collaboration Research

Chaired by
- Brent Hecht of University of Minnesota
Call for submissions (papers)
2013-11-23
Reviewing Standards for Research Paper Submissions

The reviewing standards for OpenSym (WikiSym) 2014 submissions have been published.

2013-10-22
A Short Report on WikiSym + OpenSym 2013

WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 took place at Hong Kong’s Cyberport facility. 98 registered participants from around the world enjoyed a two-track program centered on the common topic of open collaboration. Four keynotes and invited talks covered topics of open access, open educational resources, Wikipedia research, and open science. Open access, open source, and traditional wiki research contributed several sessions. A main thread was Wikipedia research, which was strongly represented at the conference, perhaps not surprisingly given that we had co-located WikiSym with Wikimania, the Wikipedia user conference. Social media coverage was strong, as can be seen from Twitter and Google Plus searches.

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2013-08-09
OpenSym 2014 General Call for Submissions (Papers)
For 2015, please see the OpenSym 2015 Call for Papers.

OpenSym 2014, the 10th International Symposium on Open Collaboration
WikiSym 2014, the 10th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

August 27-29, 2014 | Berlin, Germany

Jump ahead to call for submissions for
About the Conference

The 10th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym 2014) is the premier conference on open collaboration research and practice, including wikis and social media, Wikipedia, free, libre, and open source software, open data, open access, and IT-driven open innovation research.

OpenSym is the first conference series to bring together the different strands of open collaboration research and practice, seeking to create synergies and inspire new collaborations between computer scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and everyone interested in understanding open collaboration and how it is changing the world.

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2013-08-07
Goodbye Hong Kong, Hello Berlin!

Tonight, WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 finished successfully at Hong Kong’s Cyberport facility. Not to miss a beat, we are happy to announce that OpenSym 2014 will take place in Berlin, Germany, on August 27-29, 2014. We are saying goodbye to everyone in Hong Kong and are looking forward to seeing you again in Berlin in 2014!

2013-08-07
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Day 2, Remembering John Riedl
Today, Phoebe Ayers of the Wikimedia Foundation board and a member of the WikiSym steering committee opened the second day of WikiSym + OpenSym 2013. She introduced Dario Taraborelli of the Wikimedia Foundation, who talked about Wikipedia research and how the foundation supports it.

Phoebe also remembered John Riedl, a researcher extraordinaire and a member of the WikiSym community, who died of melanoma last month. John and his research group made many contributions to WikiSym, including papers that won best paper awards:
- 2011: WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance (with Shyong Lam, Anuradha Uduwage, Zhenhua Dong, Shilad Sen, David Musicant and Loren Terveen)
- 2009: rv you’re dumb: Identifying Discarded Work in Wiki Article History (with Michael Ekstrand)
John, you will be missed.

John Riedl by Nicole Holdorph (CC BY SA)
2013-08-06
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Starts Today!

WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 starts today, Aug 5, 2013, at Hong Kong’s Cyberport facility, see the conference website at http://opensym.org/wsos2013/. We are located in the Cyberport 3 building, Function Rooms 1-3, Training Room 1, and Sea View Concourse. Just follow the electronic signs like the one below to find us!

The Twitter and similar services hashtag is #wikisym #opensym and the conference wifi is Cyberport_OpenWifi. The proceedings are available now: table of contents, direct download. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter! Please also see the opening remarks with more information.

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2013-08-05
R-Tools: Mediawiki extension for full-scale statistical computing

This presentation is part of the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 program.

Juha Villman; Einari Happonen

Wikisystems are proven to be good for producing text and knowledge in collaborative manner but they are not designed to handle large amounts of numerical data. We needed a system that is capable for producing text and run calculations from datasets. For this purpose we created Opasnet which is a Mediawiki with integrated statistical computing extension and an external database for data. In our demonstration we will show how R (statistical software) can be integrated into Mediawiki as an extension (R-Tools) and how it can be used directly from wiki pages. This extension enables users to write R-code, run it and see the results of the calculation on the wiki page. R-tools can use data from external databases and this functionality is also demonstrated. First R-Tools demonstration was held at Wikisym 2012 in Linz. Now we will focus on its new features developed within this year.

A PDF file will be made available on August 5, 2013, through the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 conference proceedings.

2013-08-04
The Basic Techniques in Text Mining using Open-source Tools

This presentation is part of the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 program.

Jun Iio

There are many text mining tools provided commercially and non-commercially. However, the elementary text-based analysis can be done with basic Unix commands, shell-scripts, and small program of scripting languages, instead of using such extensive software. This paper introduces the basic techniques for text mining, using combination of a set of standard commands, small code, and generic tools provided as the open-source software. The target of the analysis are sixty-seven articles written by one author in a relay column since 1998. Several text-based analyses reveals a trend of interest moved within about fifteen years. In addition, at the end of this paper, the results of text-based analysis are compared with that of non-text-based analysis and the efficiency of non-parametric analysis is discussed.

A PDF file will be made available on August 5, 2013, through the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 conference proceedings.

2013-08-03