As the topic of quality is frequently raised on this list, I would like to point out some of our papers. Me and a colleague have researched information quality in virtual communities, especially assessing completeness and correctness. While we have not worked on Wikipedia (We tested for example World66 and Wikitravel, wikis for travel information) the methodology we used can easily be transferred to Wikipedia. We claim that it captures the user perspective in a rigourous way.
The results of these studies were encouraging: virtual communities - without monetary compensation - are capable of getting even with comercially produced information products. An open question remains about the required minimum activity for a virtual community to create and maintain information of high quality. I hope this helps and stipulates a discussion. Please do not hesitate contacting me for any questions. Prestipino, M., Aschoff, F.-R., Schwabe, G. How up-to-date are Online Tourism Communities? An Empirical Evaluation of Commercial and Non- Commercial Information Quality. 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-40). Waikoloa, Big Island, Hawaii, January 3-6, 2007 LINK: http://arvo.ifi.unizh.ch/im/publications/Prestipino_HICSS_2006.pdf Prestipino, M., Aschoff, R., Schwabe, G.: What’s the use of guidebooks in the age of collaborative media? Empirical Evaluation of free and commercial travel information". 19th Bled eConference eValues June 5 - 7, 2006, Bled, Slovenia LINK: http://arvo.ifi.unizh.ch/im/publications/48_Prestipino.pdf This paper presents ideas on how to improve technology for information exchange in virtual communities Prestipino, M., "Supporting Collaborative Information Spaces for Tourists", Conference Proceedings Mensch und Computer 2004, 2004. LINK: http://arvo.ifi.unizh.ch/im/publications/prestipino_mc2004. Best regards Marco Prestipino ********************************************** Marco Prestipino, M.Sc. Arbeitsgruppe Informationsmanagement Institut für Informatik Büro 2.D.11 binzmuehlestrasse 14, ch-8050 zuerich, switzerland _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
