The survey is live and collecting data at: http://bit.ly/ExpertBarriers Thanks for your feedback!
Dario
Hi Dario,
The combination of the choices:
Strongly discourages me Discourages me Neither motivates me nor discourages me Motivates me Strongly motivates me No answer
With statements such as:
Editing Wikipedia may undermine my scientific reputation
Leaves no option for people who don't consider that editing Wikipedia would harm their Academic reputation. I suspect that few people are motivated or strongly motivated to edit by the prospect of damaging their scientific reputation. But I would hope that some if not most would consider that Editing Wikipedia would not undermine their scientific reputation (providing that is that they edited responsibly).
I think a more useful and neutral question would be to ask if people agreed or disagreed with the statement
Editing Wikipedia may undermine my scientific reputation
Though I'd prefer something much more along the lines of
If you were to edit Wikipedia, what effect do you think this would have on your scientific reputation?
Very negative - negative - neutral/no effect - positive - very positive
Regards
WereSpielChequers
On 9 February 2011 14:13, Dario Taraborelli dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org wrote:
The survey is live and collecting data at: http://bit.ly/ExpertBarriers Thanks for your feedback!
Dario
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
Hi WereSpielChequers,
thanks for the feedback.
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:04 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
The combination of the choices:
Strongly discourages me Discourages me Neither motivates me nor discourages me Motivates me Strongly motivates me No answer
With statements such as:
Editing Wikipedia may undermine my scientific reputation
Leaves no option for people who don't consider that editing Wikipedia would harm their Academic reputation. I suspect that few people are motivated or strongly motivated to edit by the prospect of damaging their scientific reputation. But I would hope that some if not most would consider that Editing Wikipedia would not undermine their scientific reputation (providing that is that they edited responsibly).
There is always the possibility to skip a question ("No answer" is set by default).
Plus, this one is actually complemented by "Editing Wikipedia may help build one's scientific reputation", with the same set of possible answers. So they should find a way to indicate their opinion.
Plus, there is the free comment field at the end of the survey, and participants get an email and a link to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Areas_of_interest/Expert_i... in case they want to follow up.
I think a more useful and neutral question would be to ask if people agreed or disagreed with the statement
Editing Wikipedia may undermine my scientific reputation
Though I'd prefer something much more along the lines of
If you were to edit Wikipedia, what effect do you think this would have on your scientific reputation?
Very negative - negative - neutral/no effect - positive - very positive
We had to balance quite a few parameters when fine-tuning the survey based on the feedback received on the pilot. Besides content issues, important ones were the length, number and arrangement of blocks of question. Once these were set, there is not too much leeway for individual questions having individual sets of possible answers.
Once this survey has generated some useful data, we do plan to do some follow-up interviews and envision the possibility of a range of more detailed/ targeted questionnaires.
Daniel
Hello together,
the survey has been collecting data for a few days now, yet the responses so far came mainly from people already in Web 2.0 platforms (especially Twitter, Facebook and Wikimedia projects). We would appreciate if you could help spread the word about it in other places.
Below comes some (CC0) sample text that you can use or build on.
Thanks and cheers,
Daniel
===== Wikipedia is increasingly used by university students for "pre-research", to gain context and explore ideas for course assignments and research projects [1]. Yet many among scientists, academics and other experts are reluctant to contribute to Wikipedia, despite a growing number of calls from the scientific community to join the project [2-3].
The Wikimedia Research Committee [4] has just launched a survey to understand why scientists, academics and other experts do (or do not) contribute to Wikipedia and other collaborative projects, and whether individual motivation aligns with shared perceptions of Wikipedia within expert communities. We hope this may help us identify ways around barriers to expert participation. The survey is anonymous and takes about 20 min to complete. Please help us circulate the link among your colleagues and collaborators:
Dario Taraborelli Panagiota Alevizou Daniel Mietchen
[1] http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/125899/ [2] http://www.jmir.org/2011/1/e14/ [3] http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiati... [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee