Defining, Understanding and Supporting Open Collaboration: Lessons from the Literature

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Citation: Andrea Forte, Cliff Lampe (2013) Defining, Understanding and Supporting Open Collaboration: Lessons from the Literature. American Behavioral Scientist (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1177/0002764212469362
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1177/0002764212469362
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1177/0002764212469362
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Defining, Understanding and Supporting Open Collaboration: Lessons from the Literature
Download: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.466.9389&rep=rep1&type=pdf
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Summary

"The goal of this short introductory piece is to define open collaboration and contextualize a set of articles that span multiple disciplines and methods in a common vocabulary and history."

Definition

"The prototypical open collaboration system is an online environment that (1) supports the collective production of an artifact (2) through a technologically mediated collaboration platform (3) that presents a low barrier to entry and exit, and (4) supports the emergence of persistent but malleable social structures. Combined, these characteristics yield complex socio-technical systems that offer new opportunities for people to form ties with others and create things together."

Definition serves as a prototype for identifying systems, not all will be strong on all dimensions.


Other terms noted:

  • wiki
  • open collaboration
  • peer production
  • crowdsourcing
  • wisdom of the crowd

Consistent patterns found by open collaboration researchers:

  • Participation is unequal
  • There are special requirements for socializing new users
  • Users are massively heterogeneous in both how and why they participate

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

Researchers have assembled a vast body of work on open collaboration, but open collaboration is a moving target, requiring ongoing empirical and interdisciplinary research.

Closing sentence:

The importance of open collaboration systems in enabling new kinds of human accomplishments requires that research in this area continue and that scholars build upon the kinds of discussions highlighted in this special issue.
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