A Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration Platform provides a good summary of some of the advantages wikis provide for businesses. Written by Dr Donna Hendrix, and Griet Johannsen, both part of the Shell International's Global Knowledge Management team, I wonder how biased their version of the success of the Shell Wiki is however (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008).

The authors portray the progress of the Shell Wiki in a very positive way. They see it as a way of working together and cooperating with others, sharing knowledge and learning new things (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008, para. 6-10). Which I would say are all reasons why Wikipedia is so successful too.

Another interesting part of this article was what incentives Shell has introduced to motivate contributors. While Wikipedia contributors, "have not gotten even the glory of affixing their names" (Rosenzweig, 2006, p.117) to their entries, and generally contribute out of good will, Shell Wiki contributors are encouraged with prizes to share their knowledge (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008, para. 17). "Prizes are awarded for articles with the best content, the most effective use of wiki functionality, the highest level of interactivity (such as the most links to other articles), the most innovative layout, or the greatest number of page impressions." (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008, para. 17). While this would not work for a big collaborative project such as Wikipedia or BitTorrent, and this is why they use other strategies to encourage contributors, I can see why this kind of encouragement would work within a wiki for a corporation such as Shell.

References

Hendrix, D, & Johannsen, G. (2008). A Knowledge Sharing and Collaborative Platform. Inside Knowledge, 11(8). Retrieved from http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/sid.0/articleid.0A6EF1DD-1D6A-4CD0-94EA-DC872A5A708E/eTitle.Case_study_Shell_Wiki/qx/display.htm

Rosenzweig, R. (2006). Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. The Journal of American History, 93, 117-146. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/

Influence on Cooperation in BitTorrent Communities is a useful resource, not just for looking at file sharing communities, but also to compare to other collaborative communities. For example, I believe this article has similarities to one of the resources I chose, Good Faith Collaboration, that looks at collaboration strategies for Wikipedia users (Reagle Jr, 2011). Both Good Faith Collaboration and Influence on Cooperation in BitTorrent Communities implied that collaboration was more successful if the community members shared similar virtues (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 58; Andrade, Mowbray, Lima, Wagner & Matei, 2005, p. 112). For example, seeders and those who make files available on file sharing applications have the same generous altruistic spirit as those who make regular edits to Wikipedia pages (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 58; Andrade et al., 2005, p. 112).

Another similarity between these two articles is the importance they place on ensuring a high level of cooperation in order to achieve maximum collaboration (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103; Andrade et al., 2005, pp. 111-115). For example, Andrade et al.'s article describes how there is a minimum sharing ratio amongst some BitTorrent communities - which restricts those who are freeriders from downloading content - and how this strategy works in ensuring cooperation and reducing freeriding (Andrade et al., 2005, pp. 112-115). ). While Reagle Jr argues that good faith and a neutral point of view are the key to positive collaboration within Wikipedia (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103).

While Influence on Cooperation in BitTorrent Communities is reasonably old, having been published in 2005, I think the findings are still relevant to today. I think this resource is valuable for those studying BitTorrent specifically, or anyone looking at comparing the collaborative culture between different online communities in general.

References

Andrade, N., Mowbray, M., Lima, A., Wagner, G., & Ripeanu, M. (2005). Influences on Cooperation in BitTorrent Communities. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems (pp. 111 - 115) New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1080198&bnc=1

Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html

In the article, Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject disciplines in Wikipedia, the writers Katherine Ehmann, Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti, compare a small selection of articles - some newly created, and some well-established - from three subject disciplines - the hard sciences, soft sciences and humanities - in order to examine the article quality, how it differs from discipline to discipline and if it changes over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). One of the most interesting findings that was published in this article was that, contrary to previous research (Brandle, 2005; Dondio, et al., 2006; Lig, 2004; Stvilia, et al., 2005a, 2008; Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007), the articles used that had a greater number of edits than the others, were not the articles of the highest quality (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). Wikipedia articles on average retained 90.3 percent of their original text and in general, only small edits were made over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). I believe these new findings still support, 'the wisdom of crowds' theory though (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Even though a large portion of the text remains from the original contributor, the small edits by other contributors over time, still help to fine-tune the article's meaning and readability. The authors' exploration into Wikipedia Talk pages is also of interest, especially how these places aided the collaboration and coordination process and how this in turn contributed to the quality of articles in Wikipedia (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). While Ehmann, Large and Beheshti only studied a small number of articles, and another study is required which examines a larger number of articles, in order to make more conclusive findings, I think this article is still a useful resource (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). It is constructive to compare this article's findings to the findings in the Rosenzweig article (Rosenzweig, 2006).

References Ehmann, K., Large, A., & Beheshti, J. (2008). Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject disciplines in Wikipedia. First Monday, 13(10). Retrieved from: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2217/2034 Rosenzweig, R. (2006). Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. The Journal of American History, 93, 117-146. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/ Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Roy Rosenzweig's article Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, discusses many issues regarding collaboration, with a focus on its historical entries. One of the most interesting points Rosenzweig makes, is that the contributors on Wikipedia, "do not come from a cross-section of the world's population. They are more likely to be English-speaking, males, and denizens of the Internet" (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127). Rosenzweig explains that as a collaborative medium, Wikipedia articles show bias towards Western culture and 'nerdy' topics such as computer science, physics and math (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127-128). This is interesting information to apply to Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Is Wikipedia only representative of the wisdom of white, western, geek crowd? While this article was written back in 2006, I still find it makes some very interesting points about Wikipedia and the collaboration process, which are still applicable today. I also found this article valuable, as unlike a lot of other articles that focus mainly on the author's research which was generally conducted on a very small number of Wikipedia entries, Rosenzweig only discusses the research of others. Rosenzweig cites a range of academics that have compared Wikipedia with other encyclopaedias such as, American National Biography Online, Encarta, Columbia Encyclopaedia, and Britannica; providing the reader with an overview of the different research available and the findings made.

References Rosenzweig, R. (2006). Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. The Journal of American History, 93, 117-146. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/ Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Digital Maoism, by self-confessed ranter Jaron Lanier, provides an alternative (and quite contentious) view on collaboration and the way it is used in Wikipedia. Unlike Reagle Jr, who suggests that collaboration can be successful with the correct cultural infrastructure (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103), Lanier argues that the best way to achieve successful collaboration on the web is to always cherish the individual over the collective (Lanier, 2006, para. 68). He expresses his frustration with the inaccuracies of his own Wikipedia page and speaks about the work of collaborative communities (or as he calls it, collectives) on wikis more generally, with disgust (Lanier, 2006, para. 33). Lanier argues that, "[h]istory has shown us again and again that a hive-mind is a cruel idiot when it runs on autopilot. Nasty hive mind outbursts have been flavoured Maoist, Fascist and religious, and these are only a small sampling" and that, "[i]f wikis are to gain any more influence they ought to be improved by mechanisms like the ones they have worked tolerably well in the pre-Internet world" (Lanier, 2006, para. 65). Lanier's essay is an interesting resource to view when thinking about collaboration and 'the wisdom of crowds' theory (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5), and how this applies to Wikipedia. Lanier, a computer scientist and regular writer on the topic of computers and Internet-based technologies, portrays a controversial viewpoint that differs from much other writing on the topic. While I don't agree with most of Lanier's outspoken views which are often unsubstantiated, I think that there is some merit in the suggestion that there needs to be at least one individual, (as well as the correct infrastructure, as other theorists suggest), to guide the work in collaborative organisations. I also think this resource is useful as it is so far removed from other writing on this topic, which often glorifies the collective, allowing you to think about the topic in another way.

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

In chapter three of Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia, J.M. Reagle Jr provides a utopian vision of Wikipedia's collaborative community. Reagle Jr uses the work of Cass Sunstein to demonstrate that the collaboration process is not free of conflict, and as with other types of communities both, "consensus and dissensus each have an important, and unavoidable, role in community" (Sunstein cited in Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 5). While referring to Wikipedia's policy and guidelines, Reagle Jr suggests that by applying a "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) to the subject matter and practising good faith towards the other contributors, it is possible to achieve a successful collaborative culture (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103). This chapter is a useful resource for the study of Wikipedia as an example of an online collaborative tool, as it argues that collaborative communities can function effectively as long as they have a cultural framework to ensure productivity. I also believe this is a useful resource, as it provides a very positive view of collaboration and the work of the Wikipedia community, supporting Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). It is also interesting to compare this article's view on collaboration to the second resource I have chosen, Digital Maoism (Lanier, 2006).

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Hi Farnaz, just letting you know that when I click on your link it comes up with 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied. Is there another way to view it?