Title:	DIGITAL LIBRARIES AND SOCIAL WEB: INSIGHTS FROM WIKIPEDIA USERS’ ACTIVITIES
Author(s):	Asta Zelenkauskaite, Paolo Massa
ISBN:	978-972-8939-40-3
Editors:	Piet Kommers, Nik Bessis and Pedro Isaías
Year:	2011
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Digital libraries, Social web, Wikipedia, User-centric design.
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	39
Last Page:	47
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	A growing importance of the social aspects within large scale knowledge depositories as digital libraries was discerned since the last decade for its ever increasing number of digital depositories and users. Despite the fact that this digital trend influenced multiple users, yet little is known about how users navigate in these online platforms. In this study Wikipedia is considered as a lens to analyze user activities within a large scale online environment, in order to achieve a better understanding regarding user needs in online knowledge depositories. This study analyzed user activities in real setting where editing activities of 686,332 active contributors of English Wikipedia have been studied within a period of ten years. Their editing behaviors were compared based on different periods of permanence (longevity) within Wikipedia’s content-oriented versus social-oriented namespaces. The results show that users with less than 21 days of longevity were more likely to interact in namespaces that were designated for social purposes, compared to the users who remained from two to ten years who were more likely to exploit functionalities related to content discussion. The implications of these findings were positioned within the collaborative learning framework which postulates that users with different expertise levels have different exigencies. Since social functionalities were more frequently used by users who stayed for short periods of time, inclusion of such functionalities in online platforms can provide support to this segment of users. This study aims at contributing to the design of online collaborative environments such as digital libraries where social-oriented design would allow creating more sustainable environments that are built around the specific needs of diverse users.
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