Arto Lanamäki

The sum of all human knowledge: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content of Wikipedia

Wikipedia may be the best‐developed attempt thus far to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it a point of inquiry for researchers from different fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and its content. However, due to the variety of fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedias content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer‐reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability, and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies.

Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders: A systematic review of scholarly research on Wikipedia readers and readership

Hundreds of scholarly studies have investigated various aspects of Wikipedia. Although a number of literature reviews have provided overviews of this vast body of research, none has specifically focused on the readers of Wikipedia and issues concerning its readership. In this systematic literature review, we review 99 studies to synthesize current knowledge regarding the readership of Wikipedia and provide an analysis of research methods employed. The scholarly research has found that Wikipedia is popular not only for lighter topics such as entertainment but also for more serious topics such as health and legal information. Scholars, librarians, and students are common users, and Wikipedia provides a unique opportunity for educating students in digital literacy. We conclude with a summary of key findings, implications for researchers, and implications for the Wikipedia community.

Analyzing the Concept of Affordances in Information Systems

The affordance concept has penetrated the Information Systems (IS) scholarship as a lens for theorizing the relationship between technology and its users. However, what exactly is it that the researchers are trying to capture when they use this concept? For this essay, we carefully read IS literature to reveal underlying assumptions behind this lens and how it has been adopted. This article reveals three assumptions: 1) whether affordances are identified as intended prior use or emerging in action, 2) whether affordances are functional or non-functional, and 3) whether affordances are potential or actual. We dig into these assumptions and suggest alternatives for further enquiry.

Emergent practice as a methodological lens for public displays in-the-wild

In this paper, we seek to complement the current public display evaluation toolbox with the analytical lens of emergent practices. This evaluation method facilitates capturing the variety of ways in which a public display operates and creates value in a given context. From this viewpoint, a public display appears as a material resource for the urban practice, as well as a site for socio-cultural enactment. Our main argument is that this type of evaluation can lead to extraction of more sustained value from actual use of public displays. We discuss the theoretical foundations of emergent practices, their place and use within the public display evaluation toolbox, and situate practices as a valuable next step of in-the-wild studies. Through an empirical dataset, we also discuss real world emergent practices observed as part of the UBI-display network in Oulu, Finland.

Metacommunication Patterns in Online Communities

This paper discusses about contemporary literature on computer-mediated metacommunication and observes the phenomenon in two online communities. The results contribute by identifying six general-level patterns of how metacommunication refers to primary communication in online communities. A task-oriented, user-administrated, community (Wikipedia in Finnish) involved a remarkable number of specialized metacommunication genres. In a centrally moderated discussion-oriented community (Patientslikeme), metacommunication was intertwined more with primary ad hoc communication. We suggest that a focus on specialized metacommunication genres may appear useful in online communities. However, room for ad hoc (meta)communication is needed as well, as it provides a basis for user-initiated community development.

Mutual informing between IS Academia and Practice: Insights from KIWISR-5

Publishers version of an article published in the journal: Communications of the Association for Information Systems. Also available from the publisher at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol29/iss1/7

When Is an Affordance? Outlining Four Stances

Affordance has emerged as a core concept in information systems (IS) research during the last decade. This relational concept is applied to understand and theorize the relationship between the social and the technical. In the works of the concept originator James Gibson, the relation was mainly portrayed as an ever-existing fact between the natural environment and an animal. In contrast, IS research focuses on relationships in-the-making between artificial things and human beings. In the IS context, we have identified vagueness in temporal and relational ontology: when do affordances exist and between whom or what? In this paper, we delve into the temporal and relational questions that have been omitted in much of the IS literature. What kind of a relationship is an affordance and when does it occur? Based on our hermeneutic understanding, we identify four stances from the existing literature. We classify those stances as canonical affordance, designed affordance, potential affordance, and affordance as completed action. We further argue that each stance has its own assumptions, consequences, and thus strengths and weaknesses.

Latent Groups in Online Communities: a Longitudinal Study in Wikipedia

Research on online communities has shown that content production involves manifest groups and latent users. This paper conceptualizes a related but distinct phenomenon of latent groups. We ground this contribution in a longitudinal study on the Finnish Wikipedia (2007–2014). In the case of experts working on content within their area of expertise, individuals can constitute a group that maintains itself over time. In such a setting, it becomes viable to view the group as an acting unit instead of as individual nodes in a network. Such groups are able to sustain their activities even over periods of inactivity. Our theoretical contribution is the conceptualization of latent groups, which includes two conditions: 1) a group is capable of reforming after inactivity (i.e., dormant), and 2) a group is difficult to observe to an outsider (i.e., non-manifest).

A Consideration for Researcher Career Retrospectives in Information Systems and Organization Studies

This essay considers the researcher career retrospective (RCR) as an emerging publication genre in information systems (IS) and organization studies (OS). I assess two recent career texts, by/of Daniel Robey and John Van Maanen, as representative exemplars of this genre. I outline the genre, and identify resemblance between this and three genres of academic writing – namely career studies, IS history, and tribute. RCR fills an important niche within IS/OS publishing, and is especially needed in the Scandinavian IS research, in which it is currently absent. The 38 years of the IRIS conference, and 27 years of the SJIS journal, coincide with the careers of dozens of researchers. Reflection on these careers would provide much value for younger researchers and for the whole research community.

Non-response, Social Exclusion, and False Acceptance: Gatekeeping Tactics and Usability Work in Free-Libre Open Source Software Development

Usability is an important aspect of Free-Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), but barriers exist for usability specialists’ participation in such projects. Organizational boundary literature is interested in the tensions of online communities, including FLOSS communities. While this literature recognizes the importance of managing boundaries in online communities, little empirical research has been conducted on actual gatekeeping tactics project members perform against outsiders’ contributions. Based on several years of engaged research with FLOSS projects, we characterize three gatekeeping tactics in FLOSS projects: non-response, social exclusion, and false acceptance. They all have hindered usability work. We also offer examples of usability specialists and their contributions succeeding in avoiding these gatekeeping tactics in FLOSS projects. This paper provides an important contribution to the boundary management literature through detailed examination of gatekeeping tactics in action, as well as to the Human Computer Interaction literature interested in contributing to FLOSS projects through usability work.