Karsten D. Wolf Closing the Participation Gap - User Generated Content in E-Learning User Generated Content is an important aspect of Web 2.0's appeal to education, allowing learners to participate and fostering deeper elaboration. In an analysis of open participation projects such as Wikipedia, one can observe the long or thick tail effect, meaning that even low activity authors contribute a substantial part of such collaborative services. 1. Motivation for participation in open content projects (OCP) The main factors of motivation for participation in Open Source Software (OSS) projects are summarized based on the empirical research in this field. This contribution discusses, what differences are to be considered in the study of Open Content Projects (OCP). A motivational model for OCP participation is presented based on self-determination theory (Deci/Ryan). Furthermore, important content factors are proposed and analysed, such as content size, audience size, difficulty level, and marketability. For the content factors examples are presented from different user generated content platforms such as Wikis, Blogs, social bookmarking services, and Friend-of-a-friend networks. An analysis of successful OCPs shows that there are different "hot spots" for open content, and that "Don't Repeat Yourself (and others)" as well as smaller content sizes are the strongest forces to increase open content creation. 2. Structure and learning effects of participation Based on the analysis of activity data of 3000 students in an user generated content learning platform at the virtual university of bavaria, the structure of and differences between user activities will be presented. The idea of „Learning by Teaching“ (Papert, Kafai, Harel) and „Writing pedagogy“ (Elbow, Bereiter) assumes, that people learn more by participating actively. In a detailed analysis of learners activities’ impact on learning a business education course it can be shown that users who create more content also learn more. 3. How to "thicken" the tail of user participation? If we target user participation, how can we achieve equality? And should we try at all? Based on the same data, different didactical scenarios are compared with regard to the participation gap. The main results are, that groups with a higher level of peer interaction and a higher number of common tasks reduce the gap between the learners. Still, clear differences in the amount of participation between users remain visible. 4. Discussion of obstacles and enablers of participation While providing strong arguments for user generated content in education and detailing ways how to close the participation gap with Web 2.0 techology, this presentation concludes with a discussion of technical barriers and the idea of personal learning environments to even further increase the participation of all learners in open education settings.

1. attribution: jamesgrayking on flickr
Closing the Participation Gap -
User Generated Content in E-Learning
Karsten D. Wolf
Didactical Design of Interactive Learning Environments
Online Educa 2007
Berlin, 30.11.2007
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

2. What is the participation gap?

3. attribution: wasta on flickr

4. //bwr

5. 1,731,000 569,000
474,000 367,000
353,000 288,000
283,000 251,000
222,000 221,000
19.04.2007
Slides: www.slideshare.net/kadewe
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

6. native speakers of language
Wikipedia article
Slides: www.slideshare.net/kadewe
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

7. native speakers of language
Wikipedia article
articles ratio
Suomi 109,454 48
German 569,000 176
Slides: www.slideshare.net/kadewe
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

8. native speakers of language
Wikipedia article
articles ratio
Suomi 109,454 48
German 569,000 176
1
Wikipedia
article
Slides: www.slideshare.net/kadewe
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

9. +17% +13%
+19% +17%
+27%
+18%
+25% +15%
+27% +14%
+22%
Suomi
ca. 6 months later (1.10.2007)
Slides: www.slideshare.net/kadewe
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

10. statistics*
50% of all edits done by 0.7% of users (615 people)
72% of text written by 1.8% of users (1,500 people)
really old: October 2005 = 2 Internet years ≈ 14 years ago
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

11. 100
cumulative % of content
75
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

12. actual data
100
cumulative % of content
75
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

13. rough estimation
100
cumulative % of content
75
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

14. 100
cumulative % of content
75
very few people
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

15. do very much
100
cumulative % of content
75
very few people
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

16. 20% of people are doing 80% of the work
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

17. I am doing all the work and everyone else is lazy!
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

18. 100
equal
participation
cumulative % of content
75
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

19. equal
100
participation
cumulative % of content
gap
75
50
25
0 25 50 75 100 125
% of authors ranked by contribution
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

20. as of February 2007
Datasource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits
# of edits
authors ranked by # of edits cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

21. Wikipediholism
#1 159,825
#10 79,162
#30 53,500
# of edits
#50 46,529
#100 36,608
#500 17,305
#1,000 11,101
#2,500 5,300
authors ranked by # of edits cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

22. Wikipediholism
#1 159,825
#10 79,162
#30 53,500
# of edits
#50 46,529
#100 36,608
10 edits a day
#500 17,305
for 3 years
#1,000 11,101
#2,500 5,300
authors ranked by # of edits cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

23. as of February 2007
# of edits
Long Tail of Authors
authors ranked by # of edits cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

24. Wikipedia: consuming vs. producing?
20k requests per second
1,728,000,000 requests/day
200,000 edits a day
8,640 requests/edit
(0.01%)
67,000 editors active in November 2006
approximately <0.01% of user base editors
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

25. cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

26. s
h
t
u
o
y o rs
n
a t
m re a
rC
e
G %
5
2
Datasource JIM 2007 Press release
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

27. cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

28. Why participate?

29. Why engage for free in OSS?
• The economist‘s view: It‘s just signaling for self-promotion (Lerner & Tirole,
2002)
• Empirical studies contradict: it is intrinsic motivation!
• Hertel, Guido, Sven Nieder and Stefanie Herrmann (2003)
• Lakhani, Karim R. and Robert G. Wolf (2003)
© Karsten D. Wolf 2007

30. Understanding Open Content Authors Motivation
• Altruism – for the love of other people
• Reputation – showing off one‘s own capability = self-promotion
• Interest, Fun and Flow – doing it for the Joy of it
• Learning – learning by authoring public entities
• Collaboration – tackling something not feasible for oneself
• Job – getting a paycheck
• Saving – no need to buy textbooks and giving back some time
• Political Statement – e.g. anti capitalist point of view, anti copyrights pov…
• Assignment – getting a grade and a diploma
• Convenience – it is easier to find notes in public repositories than on my HD
© Karsten D. Wolf 2007

31. What kind of content makes
good candidate for OCP?
• both basic and advanced level of content, doesn‘t matter
• both Super Special Interest and Mass Audience
• Opportunity costs of making it open is low for most scientific SSI and
school market
• Reputation gain is great for Mass Audience
© Karsten D. Wolf 2007

32. Content size, team size & collaboration
• Smaller snippets are easier
• Wikipedia = collective
• Blogs = individual
• The bigger, the more authors = more difficult (e.g. WikiBooks)
• Solution: snippets!
• Problem: Thousands of snippets do not make great textbooks
© Karsten D. Wolf 2007

33. Commented Collections
• DRY = Don‘t Repeat Yourself
• DRY(AO) = Don‘t Repeat Yourself and Others!
• Good bye Open Content Books
• Hello Commented Collections of Open Snippets
• Makes sense from the Personal Learning Environment viewpoint, too!
© Karsten D. Wolf 2007

34. Why participation in education?

35. build
public
entities
Seymour Papert
Father of Logo
Constructionist
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

36. John Seely Brown
Xerox Parc
Cognitive Apprenticeship
culture of participation
recreation to become a form of re-creation
(remix, tinkering, sharing) based on productive
inquiry situated in communities of co-creation
learning about ➙ learning to be
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/419/
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

37. http://www.everlearn.info

40. Structure and effects of participation?

41. Research project settings
• Learning environment EverLearn (http://www.everlearn.info)
• about 4000 active users (= having completed a course)
• logs from fall 2004 to summer 2007
• about 1,85 million logged actions of users
• non-reactive observational data (level 5, Fritsche & Linneweber 2006):
the users are not aware of the observation and they don‘t know, that their
data is used for research
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

42. Consumptive usage
• read pages
• navigate the course
• download files
•…
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

43. Productive usage
• Edit pages
• Upload files
• Discuss
• Chat
•…
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

45. Usage by time: consumption vs. production

46. Usage by time: consumption vs. production

47. Usage by time: consumption vs. production

48. Correlation between
production and problem solving
Created
Chat Discussion
content in
Messages entries
words
.03 .28* .43**
Problemsolving
Score (.425) (.048) (.005)
n=36 (Wolf/Prasser 2006)

49. Gender: productive vs. consumptive usage
Prod. Total
Cons. P/T
106,7 783,9 13,6%
M 677,2
130,6 1054,9 12,4%
F 924,2
n = 1688

53. Mean
Median
50% edit more
than median!
Wikipedia
linear exponential
0.001% edit more
than median!

54. Mean
Median
50% edit more
than median!
Wikipedia
linear exponential
0.001% edit more
than median!

55. production is
harder than
consumption
participation is
less equal distributed

56. How to close the gap?

57. technical: make it easy
social: make it a small
accountable community
motivational: build up interest
and develop meaningful taks

58. Get more info at
wolf@uni-bremen.de
http://www.karsten-d-wolf.de
http://blog.didactalab.de
http://teachlab.didactalab.de
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007