The Wikimedia Research Committee [1] is currently considering a major overhaul of the research section on Meta-Wiki:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research/2011_overhaul
The practical reason to start this process is to clean up and streamline pages used by the Wikimedia community and by the Foundation to document internal research projects and policies. The ambitious goal it to make Meta:Research the main hub where all research on Wikimedia projects (be it internal or external) is discussed, reviewed and tracked. The objectives we are hoping to achieve in the short term with this project are the following:
make it easy for researchers to find the resources and WMF support they are looking for
bring as much transparency as possible to research involving the Wikimedia community, by reducing attrition between the community and researchers and making sure research is not disruptive of editor activity
design a scheme of incentives to increase researcher participation and to increase the number of projects included in the Wikimedia research directory
design a series of incentives to nudge researchers towards releasing their datasets under an open license and publishing/self-archiving their research results via open access outlets/repositories.
Our long-term vision aims to:
provide support to the publication of research data on Wikimedia projects via a unified open data infrastructure [2]
integrate structured bibliographic data into Meta:Research via whatever solution the community decides to adopt [3]
Many on this list are already actively involved in editing and maintaining Meta research pages. Your feedback and suggestions on this project would be very valuable.
Dario
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee
[2] We are currently reviewing a number of solutions to set up a central repository of open research data: http://bit.ly/OpenDataPlatforms
[3] See the long discussion started on this list with this thread: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2011-March/001361.html
--
Dario Taraborelli, PhD
Senior Research Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://nitens.org/taraborelli
Dear all,
this is a reminder that the next RCom meeting will take place on Thursday June 30, 12.30-1pm PDT (not UTC!)
Check this link for the time in your timezone: http://bit.ly/iZcHLO
If you are planning to attend the meeting please add your name in the list of attendees:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Meetings/Meeting_2011-06-…
I'll start adding items to the agenda in the coming days, but please add anything you would like to discuss.
We will use WebEx for this meeting. If you cannot call in and want us to call you, please make sure Dana <disokawa(a)wikimedia.org> has your number.
Looking forward to talking to you all!
Dario
Hello! Here the information on the workshop "Wikipedia & Research: The innovative character of Wikipedia research and the new challenges (and opportunities) associated with it" to take place at the Open Knowledge Conference June 30th at 14h, Berlin. I am happy that, among others, two of us of Rcom will be there! Daniel Mietchen and I. Will report how it goes. Cheers! Mayo
Workshop: Wikipedia & Research: The innovative character of Wikipedia research and the new challenges (and opportunities) associated with it
Workshop at the Open Knowledge Conference: June 30th, at 14:00 in Workshop, Kalkscheune, Johannisstr. 2, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Further information: http://okcon.org/2011/programme/wikipedia-research-the-innovative-character…
Contact: mayo.fuster(at)eui.eu
In 2011, Wikipedia celebrated its tenth anniversary as one of the world’s ten most visited websites and as one of the more active communities on the web. Particularly since 2005, there has been an increasing interest within the scientific community in researching Wikipedia. A recent review of Wikipedia literature resulted in 2,100 peer-reviewed articles and 38 doctoral theses related to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_studies_of_Wikipedia). Quantitative analysis of large data sets and on the English version of Wikipedia was the predominant approach in early empirical research on Wikipedia.,The focus was then expanded to conducting research on other language versions, covering a larger variety of issues, such as socio-political questions, and also adopting qualitative methods. In conjunction, the research on Wikipedia constituted a substantial body of research in itself which allowed researchers (and communities) to better and critically understand Wikimedia projects functioning from a plurality of perspectives, and to advance our knowledge on issues that go beyond Wikipedia itself. Research in a sense (and under certain conditions) is becoming a way of contributing to the Wikimedia movement. Furthermore, the community of (more or less committed) researchers on Wikipedia is growing, together with the willingness to collaborate, the synergy between research initiatives of various kinds, and the willingness to continue innovating (in what is already constituting one of the leading node of methodological innovation); a Wikimedia research “informational common” is growing, as it also increases the promotion of research from the Wikimedia Foundation (such as with the creation of the Research Committee) and Wikimedia chapters (such as the performance of surveys by Amical Viquipedia or the German Wikimedia participation in the Render project).
But new problems have also emerged, such as information overload, the lack of coordination between the various research efforts, and tensions between community members and certain researchers’ needs (for example on the question of subject recruitment, or on the publication policy of researchers and the need to maintain their positions in academia). In sum, Wikipedia research has increased substantially, and in the process has become an important area for experimentation and research innovation, but also faces new challenges associated with progression.
The workshop will focus on addressing the stage of Wikipedia research and in general common – based peer production (less focused on the content than on the methodologies and research process itself) and the innovations, problems and new insights regarding (action) research on common-based peer production. The workshop is organized in collaboration between the Research Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation, German Wikimedia and Amical Viquipedia (Catalan Wikimedia). It will consist of a set of brief presentations (including Mayo Fuster Morell member Research Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation and Amical Viquipedia, Daniel Mietchen members Research Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation, Mathias Schindler from Wikimedia German and the Render project, and Mako Benjamin Hill Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board, among others) and “networking” discussions towards action.
Bio presenters:
Mayo Fuster Morell is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Govern and Public Policies (Autonomous University of Barcelona) and visiting scholar at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (Open University of Catalonia). She has been appointed Berkman Center of Internet & Society fellow for the academic year 2011-2012. She collaborates in research projects on Wikimedia/pedia with Science Po and Barcelona Media. She is member of the research committee of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Association Amical Viquipedia (User: Lilaroja). She is promotor of the international forum of collaborative communities for the building of digital commons. She was co-founder of the International Forum on Free Culture and organized its first two editions (2009 & 2010). Additionally, she promoted the Networked Politics collaborative research and developed techno-political tools within the frame of the World Social Forum. She did her PhD thesis at the European University Institute on “The governance of online creation communities: Provision of infrastructure for the building of digital commons”. She co-wrote the books Rethinking Political Organisation in an Age of Movements and Networks (2007), Activist Research and Social Movements (in Spanish, 2005), and Guide for Social Transformation of Catalonia (in Catalan, 2003).
Daniel Mietchen (User:Mietchen) is a biophysicist by training and currently a postdoc in brain morphometry at the University of Jena, Germany. He has a general interest in integrating collaborative activities in wikis and similar environments with scholarly workflows in the framework of open science, particularly with original research, encyclopaedic knowledge, open access publishing, reputation systems and scientific networking as well as teaching and outreach. His home wikis are Citizendium and OpenWetWare, and he also contributes to a number of other wiki communities, including several Wikimedia wikis, Encyclopedia of Earth, Scholarpedia and WikiEducator.
Mathias Schindler co-founded Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. He is member of the Communication Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation and project manager in the German chapter. After studying in Frankfurt/Main, Germany he worked at the German National Library at the office for authority files. He was co-organizer of the Social Web and Knowledge Management Workshop SWKM 2008 in Beijing, China, co-located with the WWW conference. He was on the organization committee for the WikiMania conference in 2005, 2007 and 2009. His research interests include Wikipedia-style massive collaboration and bibliographic metadata.
Benjamin Mako Hill (born December 2, 1980) is a Debian hacker, intellectual property researcher, activist and author. He is a contributor and free software developer as part of the Debian and Ubuntu projects as well as the author of two best-selling technical books on the subject, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 Bible (ISBN 978-0-7645-7644-7) and The Official Ubuntu Book (ISBN 978-0-13-243594-9). He currently serves as a member of the Free Software Foundation board of directors.[2] Hill has a Masters degree from the MIT Media Lab and is currently a Senior Researcher at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he studies free software communities and business models. He is also a Fellow at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media where he coordinates the development of software for civic organizing, and works as an advisor and contractor for the One Laptop per Child project. He is a speaker for the GNU Project,[3] and serves on the board of Software Freedom International (the organization that organizes Software Freedom Day).
«·´`·.(*·.¸(`·.¸ ¸.·´)¸.·*).·´`·»
«·´¨*·¸¸« Mayo Fuster Morell ».¸.·*¨`·»
«·´`·.(¸.·´(¸.·* *·.¸)`·.¸).·´`·»
Research Digital Commons Governance: http://www.onlinecreation.info
Ph.D European University Institute
Postdoctoral Researcher. Institute of Govern and Public Policies. Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Visiting scholar. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
Visiting researcher (2008). School of information. University of California, Berkeley.
Member Research Committee. Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.onlinecreation.info
E-mail: mayo.fuster(a)eui.eu
Skype: mayoneti
Phone Spanish State: 0034-648877748
«·´`·.(*·.¸(`·.¸ ¸.·´)¸.·*).·´`·»
«·´¨*·¸¸« Mayo Fuster Morell ».¸.·*¨`·»
«·´`·.(¸.·´(¸.·* *·.¸)`·.¸).·´`·»
Research Digital Commons Governance: http://www.onlinecreation.info
Ph.D European University Institute
Postdoctoral Researcher. Institute of Govern and Public Policies. Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Visiting scholar. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
Visiting researcher (2008). School of information. University of California, Berkeley.
Member Research Committee. Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.onlinecreation.info
E-mail: mayo.fuster(a)eui.eu
Skype: mayoneti
Phone Spanish State: 0034-648877748
All,
I received an urgent request by a team of researchers who have been waiting for several months for an approval to run a survey of Wikipedia editors [1].
The team includes researchers based at Harvard and Sciences Po. One RCom member (Mayo) is also involved in this project.
The project aims to recruit participants by running banners for logged-in users on the English Wikipedia and the team previously sought community consensus for this recruitment method via a discussion on the Admin Noticeboard [2].
The planning of this project predates the creation of the Research Committee and the community discussion was not explicitly mentioned in the project page, as a result most people on RCom (myself included) were entirely unaware of it.
Over the last weeks we have successfully been able to channel new recruitment requests to Meta, where RCom and community members can discuss proposed recruitment methods for various studies. I told Jérôme and Mayo from the Sciences Po/Harvard team that their project should be no exception and I would like to solicit RCom members to comment on this proposal over the next days.
The request is sensitive not only for its tight timeline (there was apparently a commitment to get the banner campaign started today and the team has already allocated engineers to this project next week), but also because it would be the first time ever that we use the CentralNotice for research projects, and this is a decision that may have implications for future studies.
I'd like to have your thoughts on this proposal via its discussion page by Monday night (Pacific time) at the latest. I am particularly interested in hearing on this from community members (such as Ziko, WereSpielChequers, Milos, Steven).
Because of her direct involvement in the project, Mayo won't be participating in the discussion.
I attach below a letter that Jérôme addressed to the Research Committee to document the history of this project.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best
Dario
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Dynamics_of_Online_Interactions_and…
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archiv…
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Jérôme HERGUEUX <jerome.hergueux(a)sciences-po.org>
> Date: June 22, 2011 6:28:19 PM PDT
> To: dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org
> Cc: Mayo.Fuster(a)eui.eu
> Subject: Follow up Mayo chat
> Reply-To: Jérôme HERGUEUX <jerome.hergueux(a)sciences-po.org>
> x-mailer: ContactOffice Mail
>
> Dear Dario,
>
> Thank you for helping us out with this!
>
> Please find attached:
> 1. A document explaining rapidly the history of our research project and where we stand now.
> 2. The original code of the banner we prepared to advertize the study (normally the folks coding the banners at the Foundation should be aware of it).
>
> I've linked to our Early research protocol discussion on AN in the link section of our Talk Page on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Dynamics_of_Online_Interaction…
> I'll try to add some relevant info to our research project template very soon.
>
> Best,
>
> Jérôme (User:SalimJah).
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tous les courriers électroniques émis depuis la messagerie de Sciences Po doivent respecter des conditions d'usages. Pour les consulter rendez-vous sur http://www.ressources-numeriques.sciences-po.fr/confidentialite_courriel.htm
Here's a link from Jérôme, if you wish to test the survey:
> Dear Dario,
>
> Just to let your know that I've moved the research landing page from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Dynamics_of_Online_Interactions_and…tohttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Dynamics_of_Online_Interactions_a… whose title is presumably more informative.
>
> Then, if you receive any requests from RCom members who would like to actually try the survey before giving an opinion, please feel free to point them to this test url that I generated specifically for that purpose (but please, tell them to keep it confidential :) ): http://grebdioz.sciences-po.fr/limesurvey/index.php?sid=57263&newtest=Y&lan…
>
> By clicking on this url, RCom members can perform the study just like in real conditions, except that they will not be able to see the results page at the end (where a participant's earnings in each section and final earnings from the study are normally displayed along with the choice to donate it to the Wikimedia Foundation).
>
> Best,
>
> Jérôme.
All,
I would like to bring to your attention an issue that is currently being discussed within the Wikimedia Summer of Research program. I am hoping that RCom members will be able to draft a policy proposal on public editor-related data that would allow the largest possible reuse of this data for research purposes while being respectful of the privacy of our editors, as defined by the WMF privacy policy. Your feedback is appreciated:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Editor-data_policy_proposal
Dario
Hi R-Com friends,
I just wanted to let the Committee know that, after discussing it with Dario
Taraborelli and Zack Exley (Chief Community Officer at the Foundation),
we're going to assign the 'researcher' user right to the Wikimedia
Foundation summer reseach fellows. We'll be doing this on a case-by-case
basis as necessary, it will be for a limited time (ending September 1).
The full list is listed in the Research Project template on Meta,[1] and at
this point will not include people such as myself and Maryana Pinchuk who
already have the global staff right.[2]
I believe Dario will be creating a Meta page specifically to list all
requests publicly in the future, so keep an eye out for that.
Regards,
--
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Summer_of_Research_2011
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalUsers/Staff
Dear all,
I am happy to welcome Goran Milovanović as a new RCom member. Goran is a cognitive psychologist based in Belgrade (Serbia) interested in internet governance and online communities. He recently posted a number of suggestions on the role of the Research Committee in organizing Wikimedia research [1] after Milos invited him to approach the RCom.
Welcome on board, Goran – I look forward to working with you!
Best
Dario
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Research_Management
All,
we've received another request of support for a project involving subject recruitment for a survey:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Projects/WPCSB_survey
Some of you already commented on the talk page (thanks!). I'd like to respond to the researcher by the end of this week: if you have concerns with the proposed method or other issues you wish to raise, can you please post your comments to the talk page by Thursday night (US time, Friday morning EU time).
In the future we should probably set up a feed or a dedicated mailing list where RCom and community members can receive notifications of these requests and clear them within a given number of days after discussion if they do not raise major problems.
Thanks
Dario