Once You Step Over the First Line, You Become Sensitized to the Next: Towards a Gateway Theory of Online Participation

This article proposes a gateway theory as a promising alternative to the traditional antecedents-based view of online participation. The traditional view contends that people plan their online participation based on some rational motivations, leading to a foreseeable route. We arrived at our proposition through two entrance stories. These stories offer rich descriptions of formative experiences and consequent participation progression. Our proposition of the gateway theory consists of two parts: First, participation occurs with uncertainty, involving trial and error, unknown risks and rewards, and the availability of technology-facilitated services. Second, participation consists of sequences of activities, in which each step sensitizes the person to opportunities previously not acknowledged. Consistent with the metaphor of the gateway, the first encounter may often be the most critical step. We argue that the gateway theory offers major opportunities for future research, particularly in conceptualizing the early stages of an individual’s path of online participation

Impactful contributions of usability practitioners to open source software projects:a multiple case study

Abstract. Open source software (OSS) has been described as being designed by and for technically advanced users. As OSS has been gaining popularity among non-technical users, concern about its usability has been raised, as it is difficult for technically-minded developers to design for average users. Hiring usability experts to represent the needs of average users has been used in commercial software development as an effective solution for improving usability. It has been also suggested as a way of addressing the usability issues of OSS, but it has been observed that it is often difficult for usability experts to contribute to OSS so that their work has a major impact on the usability of the software. In this thesis, a multiple case study of four usability interventions was conducted. The cases were a part of a larger research program called UKKOSS, which aims to test ways how usability experts can meaningfully contribute to OSS by conducting usability interventions, where student teams act as usability practitioners who enter OSS projects and carry out usability work on them. This study examined how OSS developers reacted to four of those usability interventions by examining the data gathered during those interventions. The analysed data included documents, such as summary reports, communication logs, project plans, and reports on the conducted usability activities. The larger goal of studying these cases was to gather information on how usability practitioners can conduct impactful usability work on OSS projects. The outcomes of the cases were examined through the lens of prior research, and the factors that may have contributed to the success of the cases were examined through cross-case analysis. The developers welcomed the usability work of the usability teams in generally all of the four cases, but the actual impacts the interventions had varied from none of the suggested usability changes being implemented to most of them being implemented to the software. The outcomes of the most successful cases suggest that an approach where usability practitioners implement their suggested changes themselves after discussing about them with the core developers, establishing trust with the developers by contacting them via voice call or video conferencing instead of using only asynchronous communication, and making usability reports as persuasive as possible by including user testing metrics which strengthen the validity of the issues, should be studied further to evaluate if they can have a positive effect on the impact of the work of usability practitioners. The main contributions of this research were supporting the prior research on the obstacles faced by usability experts entering OSS projects by supporting it with empirical evidence and proposing new areas of research on the subject based on the outcomes of the cases

BENKLER REVISITED – VENTURING BEYOND THE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ARENA?

The organizational principles of open source software (OSS) development have challenged traditional theories in economics, organization research and information systems. In a seminal paper, Benkler (2002) provided a comprehensive framework to structure and explain these OSS principles. Coined Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP), his framework has inspired a large stream of research on OSS. The objective of our paper is to determine whether CBPP also provides a viable framework to investigate projects of open innovation in non-software related domains. Using a case study approach, we focus on four projects that attempt to operate in line with the OSS phenomenon, but deal with tangible outputs (biotechnology, automobiles, entertainment hardware, and public patent review). We show that in general the CBPP framework is well-suited to explain open value creation in these domains. However, we also find several factors which limit its adoption to non-software related arenas

Players' Motivations to Participate the Mobile Game Design with the Game Creator

The thesis investigates the players' motivations to participate in the innovation process of mobile game design. The topics of the thesis are mobile game, online community, and user-centered innovation. Although many researchers have studied the fields, there is not enough research looking into the practice of user-centered innovation and the role of online community in the mobile game industry. Meanwhile, mobile game creators seek for players' feedback and ideas to improve games and, further, players' loyalty. Thus, the thesis attempts to present a new model to demonstrate the motivations. The model provides the insights to explore the factors of a successful innovation community. It also displays the determinants of an attractive environment for users to share ideas. The thesis uses content analysis. The data is from "Ideas & Feature Requests" of Clash Royale online community, a mobile game produced by Supercell. The thesis concentrates on card idea threads. Total 2198 threads are analyzed. A research model is built based on the previous research. "Enjoyment", "Feedback", and "Leadership" (with "Lead Member" and "Moderator") are the motivations in the research model. The analysis results affirm the motivations and give more insights. The results find that "praise" and "advice" are the essential types of feedbacks. And feedbacks could increase enjoyment. The final model consists of "Enjoyment", "Feedback" (with "Praise" and "Advice"), and "Leadership" (with "Lead Member" and "Moderator"). It indicates the influence of feedback on enjoyment as well. In conclusion, enjoyment encourages players to participate innovation; feedback and leadership draw them to share the ideas

The e-Government Development Discourse

research agenda for e-Government. When e-Government was first conceived, it was designed upon basic technologies where the emphasis was only on the simple display of government information for citizens to read. Nowadays, e-Government design comprises many complicated modules such as upload and download consoles, two-way interaction consoles between citizens and government agents, integrated government business processes presenting the whole of government, and it does not depend solely on technology. The complexity of e-Government has now evolved to include political, cultural, economic, social and technical dimensions. Bringing all these difficult aspects together is so complicated that it needs carefully planned strategies informed by local contextual characteristics. Rather than giving formulaic definitions and conceptual standpoints on many aspects of e-Government, as is the case in many e-Government publications, this book will explore the frontiers of global knowledge value chains by discussing current and future dimensions of e-Government. For example, the book discusses the concept of data governance by exploring how actual opening up of government data can be achieved, especially in a developing world context. Further, the book posits that opening government data should be followed by the opening up of government business processes in order to peddle the concept of accountability and responsiveness. Much text on data governance has concentrated on articulating the basic definitions surrounding this concept. Another very important topic explored in this book is regarding how the concept of decolonisation can be extended to e-Government by providing practical examples as to how researchers in the developing world can contribute to the advancement of e-Government as a scientific field of enquiry and guide its implementation, thereof. Decolonisation is advocated for in e-Government research so that there is a balance in the inclusion of the Afrocentric knowledge into e-Government advancement other than over-reliance on the Euro-, Asia- and America-centric knowledge value chains (Mbembe 2015). As e-Government is a very expensive undertaking, the issue of funding has excluded African countries and a majority of the developing world from implementing e-Government. Despite funding being a critical cornerstone of e-Government development, there is a dearth of information on this topic. Therefore, this book provides a chapter which discusses traditional and innovative ways of funding e-Government design and implementation which can go a long way in improving e-Government penetration into the developing world. Further, the book explores how intelligent e-Government applications can be designed, especially in resource-constrained countries. A couple of emerging technology innovations such as fog computing and intelligent information technology are explored within the realm of e-Government design

Towards Successful Crowdsourcing Projects: Evaluating the Implementation of Governance Mechanisms

The last decade has witnessed the proliferation of crowdsourcing in various academic domains including strategic management, computer science, or IS research. Numerous companies have drawn on this concept and leveraged the wisdom of crowds for various purposes. However, not all crowdsourcing projects turn out to be a striking success. Hence, research and practice are on the lookout for the main factors influencing the success of crowdsourcing projects. In this context, proper governance is considered as the key to success by several researchers. However, little is known about governance mechanisms and their impact on project outcomes. We address this issue by means of a multiple case analysis in the scope of which we examine crowdsourcing projects on collaboration-based and/or competition-based crowdsourcing systems. Our initial study reveals that task definition mechanisms and quality assurance mechanisms have the highest impact on the success of crowdsourcing projects, whereas task allocation mechanisms are less decisive

The e-Government Development Discourse

research agenda for e-Government. When e-Government was first conceived, it was designed upon basic technologies where the emphasis was only on the simple display of government information for citizens to read. Nowadays, e-Government design comprises many complicated modules such as upload and download consoles, two-way interaction consoles between citizens and government agents, integrated government business processes presenting the whole of government, and it does not depend solely on technology. The complexity of e-Government has now evolved to include political, cultural, economic, social and technical dimensions. Bringing all these difficult aspects together is so complicated that it needs carefully planned strategies informed by local contextual characteristics. Rather than giving formulaic definitions and conceptual standpoints on many aspects of e-Government, as is the case in many e-Government publications, this book will explore the frontiers of global knowledge value chains by discussing current and future dimensions of e-Government. For example, the book discusses the concept of data governance by exploring how actual opening up of government data can be achieved, especially in a developing world context. Further, the book posits that opening government data should be followed by the opening up of government business processes in order to peddle the concept of accountability and responsiveness. Much text on data governance has concentrated on articulating the basic definitions surrounding this concept. Another very important topic explored in this book is regarding how the concept of decolonisation can be extended to e-Government by providing practical examples as to how researchers in the developing world can contribute to the advancement of e-Government as a scientific field of enquiry and guide its implementation, thereof. Decolonisation is advocated for in e-Government research so that there is a balance in the inclusion of the Afrocentric knowledge into e-Government advancement other than over-reliance on the Euro-, Asia- and America-centric knowledge value chains (Mbembe 2015). As e-Government is a very expensive undertaking, the issue of funding has excluded African countries and a majority of the developing world from implementing e-Government. Despite funding being a critical cornerstone of e-Government development, there is a dearth of information on this topic. Therefore, this book provides a chapter which discusses traditional and innovative ways of funding e-Government design and implementation which can go a long way in improving e-Government penetration into the developing world. Further, the book explores how intelligent e-Government applications can be designed, especially in resource-constrained countries. A couple of emerging technology innovations such as fog computing and intelligent information technology are explored within the realm of e-Government design

Implementing user innovation: case mobile web server beta

Open innovation is challenging the traditional model of closed innovation in research and product development. The idea is to open the boundaries of a firm and let external influences take part in the development processes. One way of utilizing open innovation is to involve the so-called lead users via user innovation methods. The concept of MWS ”an Internet server in the phone” is an original Nokia Research Center innovation. It is a fully-fledged HTTP server that has been adapted to Nokia's Symbian smartphones. This makes it possible to use the phone features remotely from anywhere over the Internet. For the user of the phone this opens up new possibilities to use the device for example as a remote camera or data storage. If the user chooses it is also possible to open up access to the phone for friends which creates new possibilities for sharing information and communication. The methods of open innovation were utilized in the project in many ways. First of all most of the required technology was based on open source software, such as Apache HTTP Server and Python scripting language. By employing open source software the project was able to concentrate on integration to the smartphone platform. It was also thought that using open source software components it would be easier to motivate new developers to come up with new innovative uses for technology solution. In the MWS beta project the idea was to make the service accessible for a wider base of lead users in the mobile world. It was thought that involving lead users would lead to the discovery of new use cases for the technology. Several methods and tools for user innovation were employed in this phase of the project, such as discussion boards, a blog and direct communication channels. This thesis work documents the phases of the beta project and the results of user innovation. /Kir1

Development of an open source web-based infrastructure for designing medical devices

The term ‘Open Source’ is commonly associated with software due to its proven success, encompassing a user’s ability to review and modify the underlying source code, to disseminate modified or unmodified versions to others, and to use it without facing the prospect of legal repercussions (Siedlok, 2001). In the context of product design, namely medical device design, the concept remains relatively novel with no prior research being reported. A study of applying the open source concept to medical device design by developing a web based infrastructure for its facilitation is reported here. Results: The stakeholder requirements are captured using a semi-structured questionnaire and validated through cross referencing responses to questions with other responses from stakeholders of the same or similar occupation. The most prominent responses are selected as the key stakeholder requirements and utilised in conjunction with the functional system requirements outlined in the System Requirements Specification (SyRS), both sets of requirements provide the foundation for the open source web based infrastructure development. Conclusion: The comprehensiveness of the requirements indicate that the open source web based infrastructure will support the design of all medical devices that are classified as high risk, medium risk or low risk devices, whilst devices external to this scope remain a future certainty