@proceedings {2020, title = {Effects of stigmergic and explicit coordination on Wikipedia article quality}, year = {2020}, address = {Wailea, HI}, abstract = {

Prior research on Wikipedia has noted the importance of both explicit coordination of edits (i.e., through the article Talk page) and stigmergic coordination (i.e., through the article itself). Using a panel data set of article quality and edits for 23 articles over time, we examine the impact of different kinds of edits on article quality. We find that stigmergically-coordinated edits seem to have the biggest effect on quality, but that explicit coordination of major edits also predicts article quality. The findings have implications for both research on coordination inWikipedia and for supporting editors.

}, doi = {10.24251/HICSS.2020.287}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/Stigmergy_in_Wikipedia_HICSS_2020.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Amira Rezgui} } @unpublished {9999, title = {The impact of initial group characteristics on quality in online communities of creation}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Open projects aimed at creating new knowledge (also known as online communities of creation) are increasingly central in the production of new and innovative knowledge. In our research study, we are interested in the impact of initial group characteristics on the quality of the output. We studied in particular Wikipedia in different three languages: Arabic, Romanian and Thai. Our results confirm the importance of the initial project group. We found a positive impact of a large initial group formed by members with an intermediate level of diversity in the focus of their editing but having an equal and lower level of longevity.}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/The_importance_of_initial_core_member_in_online_communities_0.pdf}, author = {Amira Rezgui and Kevin Crowston and Nicolas Jullien} } @article {2019, title = {Socio-technical affordances for stigmergic coordination implemented in MIDST, a tool for data-science teams}, journal = {Proceedings of the ACM }, volume = {3}, year = {2019}, pages = {Article 117}, abstract = {

We present a conceptual framework for socio-technical affordances for stigmergic coordination, that is, coordination supported by a shared work product. Based on research on free/libre open source software development, we theorize that stigmergic coordination depends on three sets of socio-technical affordances: the visibility and combinability of the work, along with defined genres of work contributions. As a demonstration of the utility of the developed framework, we use it as the basis for the design and implementation of a system, MIDST, that supports these affordances and that we thus expect to support stigmergic coordination. We describe an initial assessment of the impact of the tool on the work of project teams of three to six data-science students that suggests that the tool was useful but also in need of further development. We conclude with plans for future research and an assessment of theory-driven system design.

}, keywords = {stigmergic coordination; translucency; awareness; data-science teams}, doi = {10.1145/3359219}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/cscw117-crowstonA.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Jeffery Saltz and Amira Rezgui and Yatish Hegde and Sangseok You} } @proceedings {9999, title = {Stigmergic coordination in Wikipedia}, year = {2018}, abstract = {

We examine a novel approach to coordination, namely stigmergic coordination, that is, coordination mediated by changes to a shared work product. Stigmergy stands in contrast to the two coordination approaches identified in the existing literature on coordination, explicit coordination, based on direct communication through discussion page or user talk pages, and implicit coordination, based on unspoken expectations and shared mental models of the task to be accomplished. We look for evidence of stigmergic coordination in the context of Wikipedia, as one of the most successful experiments in online collaborative knowledge building. Using a novel approach to identifying edits to the same part of a Wikipedia article, we show that a majority of edits to two example articles are not associated with discussion on the article Talk page, suggesting the possibility of stigmergic coordination. However, some amount of discussion does seem to be related to article quality, suggesting the limits to this approach to coordination.

}, keywords = {Coordination, distributed groups, on-line epistemic community, Stigmergy, Wikipedia}, url = {http://www.opensym.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/OpenSym2018_paper_34.pdf}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/stigmergic-coordination-wikipedia\%20final.pdf}, author = {Amira Rezgui and Kevin Crowston} }