Ethnographically-informed distributed participatory design framework for sociotechnical change : co-designing a collaborative training tool to support real-time collaborative writing
Abstract
Although Wikipedia’s immense success is partially due to its support of the asynchronous collaboration model, researchers argue that the bureaucratic rules and technical infrastructure enabling it feed into Wikipedia’s content bias. Attempts to introduce different collaboration models have so far failed, but the fact that they have occurred persistently over time suggests that at least part of the Wikipedia community favours incorporating features such as real-time collaborative editing.
My research is founded on the argument that the advantageous aspects of the asynchronous model should be preserved, although the existing model needs to be complemented by real-time collaboration in settings such as Wikipedia training events. This thesis describes a Participatory Design process resulting in a prototype called WikiSync, a system that introduces real-time collaboration for the Wikipedia community using a responsible design approach that is respectful of Wikipedia’s rich social structure and history.
Furthermore, my research has produced an adaptive methodology for co-designing sociotechnical solutions in a geographically distributed community. After an in-depth observation of online Wikipedia training and the existing community innovation processes, my participatory design sessions have helped create a mutual learning environment for co-designing WikiSync in tandem with the community, while addressing a wide range of their concerns about real-time collaboration. I also consulted the broader Wikipedia community using an online social ideation and voting tool to evaluate the desirability and applicability of the solution. Finally, the resulting ethnographically-informed distributed Participatory Design framework provides an innovation process for involving a diverse, widely distributed online community in co-designing sociotechnical solutions.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Collections
Except where otherwise noted within the work, this item's licence for re-use is described as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
International organisation theory and the politics of regime change : armaments collaboration in the Atlantic community
Ellis, Andrew S. (University of St Andrews, 1993) - ThesisThe purpose of the analysis is to make a theoretical contribution in two related fields of international relations research. Firstly, the concepts of complex interdependence and international regimes are critically examined ... -
Collaborative and evolutionary ontology development & its application in IM system for enhanced presence
Zhai, Ying (University of St Andrews, 2012-08-28) - ThesisThis research contributes to the field of ontology-based semantic matching techniques and also to the field of Instant Messaging (IM) based enhanced presence. It aims to achieve a mutually beneficial development of two ... -
Maintaining personhood and self-image in dementia : an exploration of collaborative communication
Ellis, Maggie P. (University of St Andrews, 2009) - ThesisThe main aim of this thesis was to explore the maintenance of personhood and self-image in dementia by way of facilitating collaborative communication between people with dementia and their caregivers/interaction partners. ...