Content Reuse and Interest Sharing in Tagging Communities

Tagging communities represent a subclass of a broader class of user-generated content-sharing online communities. In such communities users introduce and tag content for later use. Although recent studies advocate and attempt to harness social knowledge in this context by exploiting collaboration among users, little research has been done to quantify the current level of user collaboration in these communities. This paper introduces two metrics to quantify the level of collaboration: content reuse and shared interest. Using these two metrics, this paper shows that the current level of collaboration in CiteULike and Connotea is consistently low, which significantly limits the potential of harnessing the social knowledge in communities. This study also discusses implications of these findings in the context of recommendation and reputation systems.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, AAAI Spring Symposium on Social Information Processin

Providing behaviour awareness in collaborative project courses

Several studies show that awareness mechanisms can contribute to enhance the collaboration process among students and the learning experiences during collaborative project courses. However, it is not clear what awareness information should be provided to whom, when it should be provided, and how to obtain and represent such information in an accurate and understandable way. Regardless the research efforts done in this area, the problem remains open. By recognizing the diversity of work scenarios (contexts) where the collaboration may occur, this research proposes a behaviour awareness mechanism to support collaborative work in undergraduate project courses. Based on the authors previous experiences and the literature in the area, the proposed mechanism considers personal and social awareness components, which represent metrics in a visual way, helping students realize their performance, and lecturers intervene when needed. The trustworthiness of the mechanisms for determining the metrics was verified using empirical data, and the usability and usefulness of these metrics were evaluated with undergraduate students. Experimental results show that this awareness mechanism is useful, understandable and representative of the observed scenarios.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Providing behaviour awareness in collaborative project courses

Several studies show that awareness mechanisms can contribute to enhance the collaboration process among students and the learning experiences during collaborative project courses. However, it is not clear what awareness information should be provided to whom, when it should be provided, and how to obtain and represent such information in an accurate and understandable way. Regardless the research efforts done in this area, the problem remains open. By recognizing the diversity of work scenarios (contexts) where the collaboration may occur, this research proposes a behaviour awareness mechanism to support collaborative work in undergraduate project courses. Based on the authors previous experiences and the literature in the area, the proposed mechanism considers personal and social awareness components, which represent metrics in a visual way, helping students realize their performance, and lecturers intervene when needed. The trustworthiness of the mechanisms for determining the metrics was verified using empirical data, and the usability and usefulness of these metrics were evaluated with undergraduate students. Experimental results show that this awareness mechanism is useful, understandable and representative of the observed scenarios.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Metrics for Analyzing Social Documents to Understand Joint Work

Social Collaboration Analytics (SCA) aims at measuring and interpreting communication and joint work on collaboration platforms and is a relatively new topic in the discipline of Information Systems. Previous applications of SCA are largely based on transactional data (event logs). In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the examination of collaboration based on the structure of social documents. Guided by the ontology for social business documents (SocDOnt) we develop metrics to measure collaboration around documents that provide traces of collaborative activity. For the evaluation, we apply these metrics to a large-scale collaboration platform. The findings show that group workspaces that support the same use case are characterized by a similar richness of their social documents (i.e. the number of components and contributing authors). We also show typical differences in the “collaborativity” of functional modules (containers)

OpenDigger: Data Mining and Information Service System for Open Collaboration Digital Ecosystem

The widespread development and adoption of open-source software have built an ecosystem for open development and collaboration. In this ecosystem, individuals and organizations collaborate to create high-quality software that can be used by everyone. Social collaboration platforms like GitHub have further facilitated large-scale, distributed, and fine-grained code collaboration and technical interactions. Countless developers contribute code, review code, report bugs, and propose new features on these platforms every day, generating a massive amount of valuable behavioral data from the open collaboration process. This paper presents the design and implementation of OpenDigger, a comprehensive data mining and information service system for open collaboration in the digital ecosystem. The goal is to build a data infrastructure for the open-source domain and promote the continuous development of the open-source ecosystem. The metrics and analysis models in the OpenDigger system can mine various knowledge from the macro to micro levels in the open-source digital ecosystem. Through a unified information service interface, OpenDigger provides various open-source information services to different user groups, including governments, enterprises, foundations, and individuals. As a novel information service system in the open-source ecosystem, this paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the metrics and models in OpenDigger through several real-world scenarios, including products, tools, applications, and courses. It showcases the significant and diverse practical applications of the metrics and models in both algorithmic and business aspects.Comment: in Chinese languag

Australian innovation system report 2011

Key points Metrics and baseline indicators which track progress against the Government’s innovation priorities and targets – these metrics are presented under four themes: skills and research capacity, business innovation, links and collaboration and public sector and social innovation Features and trends of the Australian innovation system and performance as a whole by comparing Australia’s innovation performance to other OECD countries in areas such as framework conditions for entrepreneurship and innovation, the ways Australian firms innovate, investment in intangible capital, collaboration and skills used and shortages Actions, achievements, and forward plans of various participants in the national innovation system, including governments, public sector researchers, and industry

On the Structural Properties of Social Networks and their Measurement-calibrated Synthetic Counterparts

Data-driven analysis of large social networks has attracted a great deal of research interest. In this paper, we investigate 120 real social networks and their measurement-calibrated synthetic counterparts generated by four well-known network models. We investigate the structural properties of the networks revealing the correlation profiles of graph metrics across various social domains (friendship networks, communication networks, and collaboration networks). We find that the correlation patterns differ across domains. We identify a non-redundant set of metrics to describe social networks. We study which topological characteristics of real networks the models can or cannot capture. We find that the goodness-of-fit of the network models depends on the domains. Furthermore, while 2K and stochastic block models lack the capability of generating graphs with large diameter and high clustering coefficient at the same time, they can still be used to mimic social networks relatively efficiently.Comment: To appear in International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM '19), Vancouver, BC, Canad

Characterizing social media metrics of scholarly papers : the effect of document properties and collaboration patterns

A number of new metrics based on social media platforms—grouped under the term “altmetrics”—have recently been introduced as potential indicators of research impact. Despite their current popularity, there is a lack of information regarding the determinants of these metrics. Using publication and citation data from 1.3 million papers published in 2012 and covered in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science as well as social media counts from Altmetric.com, this paper analyses the main patterns of five social media metrics as a function of document characteristics (i.e., discipline, document type, title length, number of pages and references) and collaborative practices and compares them to patterns known for citations. Results show that the presence of papers on social media is low, with 21.5% of papers receiving at least one tweet, 4.7% being shared on Facebook, 1.9% mentioned on blogs, 0.8% found on Google+ and 0.7% discussed in mainstream media. By contrast, 66.8% of papers have received at least one citation. Our findings show that both citations and social media metrics increase with the extent of collaboration and the length of the references list. On the other hand, while editorials and news items are seldom cited, it is these types of document that are the most popular on Twitter. Similarly, while longer papers typically attract more citations, an opposite trend is seen on social media platforms. Finally, contrary to what is observed for citations, it is papers in the Social Sciences and humanities that are the most often found on social media platforms. On the whole, these findings suggest that factors driving social media and citations are different. Therefore, social media metrics cannot actually be seen as alternatives to citations; at most, they may function as complements to other type of indicators