Using Wikis to Generate Learning at ICIS 2007

Exploratory learning during academic research presentations, such as at ICIS, is essentially a process of what has been referred to as \u27perspective taking and perspective making\u27. Technology support has generally been limited to back-channel conversations, such as chat, discussion boards, or instant messaging. Wikis, however, provide additional affordances that make it possible to support not only back-channel conversations, but what we call “back-channel contributions”. We found support for the proposition that “backchannel contributions” made in a first-ever use of wikis at ICIS would overcome process losses associated with the audience not being able to speak simultaneously with the speaker, and allow the audience to share reactions to the speech not just with the speaker but with others in the room, and, as a result, would help participants generate new ideas and learn not just from the speaker, but from each other

Identifying Social Computing Dimensions: A Multidimensional Scaling Study

Despite an increasing popularity, the impact and benefits of corporate social computing remain unclear. This paper aims at rigorously studying social computing tools as a new class of technology and provides a holistic definition and characterization. After a comprehensive literature review, we empirically explored the defining attributes and underlying dimensions of social computing as a whole using the multidimensional scaling (MDS) methodology. The study found that 13 representative exemplar tools differ over three dimensions: (i) their ability to support social interactions, social relations, and communities, (ii) their hedonic versus utilitarian focus, and (iii) their ability to support convergence versus conveyance of generated content. A Property Fitting (ProFit) study confirmed the interpretation of the dimensions. This provided a better understanding of this technology and allowed us to better theorize about the expected benefits and impacts of social computing on organizations, to offer guidelines for adoption and provide suggestions for future research

EMPLOYING WIKI AS A COLLABORATIVE INFORMATION REPOSITORY IN A MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY: THE NBC UNIVERSAL CASE

Wiki has been widely accepted by educational institutions, homes, and corporations, and is expected to grow continuously. Business enterprises quickly recognize the value of shared content: Some of the largest corporations, such as Google and IBM use wikis to manage daily operations and to share information among employees. This case study presents how NBC Universal developed a wiki, and used it to enhance knowledge-sharing, thereby achieving significant costsavings, performance improvement and employee satisfactions. This case shows Wiki can bring greater value to an organization with a dynamically changing structure in which capturing and sharing of tacit knowledge is critical for its success. By clearly demonstrating benefits of collaborative information repositories in the widely-recognized media and entertainment firm, this case will provide valuable learning opportunities to both professional and academic audience

Classifying Web 2.0 Supported Applications By Pattern Of Usage: Functional & Technical ISSUES

The rapid evolution of Internet technologies have witnessed new Web elements, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, social bookmarking, and other related applications referred to as Web 2.0. Web 1.0 paradigm was related with passive, just receptive users, whereas Web 2.0 paradigm relies mainly on user participation and user-generated content. In Web 2.0 applications users are invited to comment, share, edit, classify, as well as remix data from multiple sources. Although there are several Web 2.0 applications in the market there is still lack of a profound approach guiding the analysis, design and development of such applications. This paper suggests classifying Web 2.0 tools by “Pattern of Usage” or in other words the functionalities that characterize their specific features. By reviewing several literatures we extracted multiple attributes related to functionalities of Web 2.0 tools. These have been crystallised into 7 patterns of usage that include; Inter-connectivity, Content authoring, Content tagging & rating, Content aggregation & syndication, Content remixing, Content streaming and File sharing. By interlinking functionality/ usage with underlying technologies, techniques and architecture we provided insight into design and technical requirements for Web 2.0 supported applications. Furthermore we broke down the patterns into basic, elementary to include Inter-connectivity, File sharing and Content remixing, and secondary, supportive to include the other four patterns. This would provide the technical core for any development methodology targeted at Web 2.0 applications

Wikipedia Usage Patterns: The Dynamics of Growth

Wikis have attracted attention as a powerful technological platform on which to harness the potential benefits of collective knowledge. Current literature identifies different behavioral factors that modulate the interaction between contributors and wikis. Some inhibit growth while others enhance it. However, while these individual factors have been identified in the literature, their collective effects have not yet been identified. In this paper, we use the system dynamics methodology, and a survey of Wikipedia users, to propose a holistic model of the interaction among different factors and their collective impact on Wikipedia growth. The model is simulated to examine its ability to replicate observed growth patterns of Wikipedia metrics. Results indicate that the model is a reasonable starting point for understanding observed Wiki growth patterns. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt in the literature to synthesize a holistic model of the forces underlying Wiki growth

Democratising Organisational Knowledge: The Potential of the Corporate Wiki

Attempts to impose knowledge management often ignore the vast organisational resource of workrelated tacit knowledge possessed by knowledge workers. Our research reveals that activities supported by social technologies such as Wikis, may provide a more appropriate capability for tacit knowledge management where a network centric focus is adopted. A corporate Wiki has the potential to engage the collective responsibilities of knowledge workers to transfer their collective experience and skills into a dynamic shared knowledge repository. However, the traditional organisational culture can be reluctant to allow this power shift which surrenders the monopolistic control of the few over the creation and management of organisational knowledge. In order to frame the theoretical perspectives of these new processes of creation, accumulation and maintenance of tacit knowledge in organisations, this paper uses Activity Theory to analyse the Wiki as a tool that mediates employee-based knowledge management activities leading to the democratisation of organisational knowledge

Gamification – A New Phenomenon in Information Systems Research?

In recent years, gamification, the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, has found widespread adoption in online-communities and social media applications with the aim to enhance brand awareness and loyalty, innovation, and online user engagement. Information Systems (IS) research seems to have just started to pay attention to gamification as a phenomenon that is worth to be studied, although the interaction of technological and social systems is at the core of the discipline. By means of a thorough literature review, we investigate whether gamification is actually a new phenomenon in IS research or if it has already been researched previously, but simply using a terminology that is different from current gamification research in other disciplines. Through this study, we identify the overlap between IS and gamification research, identify specific research needs, and suggest avenues for future research on gamification from an IS perspective

The Sensible Organization: A New Agenda for IS Research

IS research and practice does not adequately address modern organizational forms of flatter hierarchies; decentralized decision-making, greater capacity for tolerance of ambiguity, permeable internal and external boundaries, capacity for renewal, self-organizing units, self-integrating coordination mechanisms and continual change. The important challenge for IS is to determine what sort of organizational forms, structures and systems are most appropriate to meet the demands of the current and foreseeable environment. We argue that this challenge can be met through a new agenda for IS based on the concept of the ‘sensible organization’. Our argument is grounded in evidence drawn from the findings of a number of our empirical studies. We conclude that the new agenda for IS needs to targets the agile, social and networked organization, in the context of its chaotic, complex environment, in order to support knowledge work practices that integrate thinking and doing