Sheizaf Rafaeli

Information Overload and the Message Dynamics of Online Interaction Spaces: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Exploration

This publication contains reprint articles for which IEEE does not hold copyright. Full text is not available on IEEE Xplore for these articles.

Predictors of answer quality in online Q&A sites

Question and answer (Q&A) sites such as Yahoo! Answers are places where users ask questions and others answer them. In this paper, we investigate predictors of answer quality through a comparative, controlled field study of responses provided across several online Q&A sites. Along with several quantitative results concerning the effects of factors such as question topic and rhetorical strategy, we present two high-level messages. First, you get what you pay for in Q&A sites. Answer quality was typically higher in Google Answers (a fee-based site) than in the free sites we studied, and paying more money for an answer led to better outcomes. Second, we find that a Q&A sites community of users contributes to its success. Yahoo! Answers, a Q&A site where anybody can answer questions, outperformed sites that depend on specific individuals to answer questions, such as library reference services.

De-lurking in virtual communities: a social communication network approach to measuring the effects of social and cultural capital

The asymmetry of activity in virtual communities is of great interest. While participation in the activities of virtual communities is crucial for a communitys survival and development, many people prefer lurking, that is passive attention over active participation. Often, lurkers are the vast majority. There could be many reasons for lurking. Lurking can be measured and perhaps affected by both dispositional and situational variables. This project investigates social and cultural capital, situational antecedents of lurking and de-lurking. We propose a novel way of measuring such capital, lurking, and de-lurking. We try to figure out what are the triggers to active participation. We try to answer this by mathematically defining a social communication network of activities in authenticated discussion forums. Authenticated discussion forums provide exact log information about every participants activities and allow us to identify lurkers that become first time posters. The proposed social communication network approach (SCN) is an extension of the traditional social network methodology to include, beyond human actors, discussion topics (e.g. Usenet newsgroups threads) and subjects of discussions (e.g. Usenet groups) as well. In addition, the social communication network approach distinguishes between READ and POST link types. These indicate active participation on the part of the human actor. We attempt to validate this model by examining the SCN using data collected in a sample of 82 online forums. By analyzing a graph structure of the network at moments of initial postings we verify several hypotheses about causes of de-lurking and provide some directions towards measuring active participation in virtual communities.

Electronic Bulletin Boards and “Public Goods” Explanations of Collaborative Mass Media

Collaborative mass media are a new type of mass communications medium in which the audience acts both as the source and the receiver of the message. Theories of discretionary data base contributions and critical mass theory offer parallel explanations for the success of collaborative media. The present research integrated the predictions of these two perspectives in the context of a national survey of public electronic bulletin board systems. The study documented the nature and extent of electronic bulletin board use and compared predictions about the success of collaborative media based on the two theoretical perspectives. File contribution levels and system adoption rates were both found to be directly related to a measure of symmetry in user participation. Content diversity was directly related to contribution levels, but not to overall adoption levels. The results provided limited support for discretionary data base theory.

The Electronic Bulletin Board: A Computer-Driven Mass Medium

The public access electronic bulletin board is a medium which serves middle-sized audiences. It is a growing medium both in terms of audience size and in proliferation of outlets. Its public image has been charged with a mix of exaggerations. The present paper argues that the medium and its audiences deserve an investigation that precedes assumptions of positive or negative massive effects. Instead, its special participative and interactive nature prescribes a uses-and-gratifications approach to the study of motivations and actual use. In a survey of the participants in one such electronic bulletin board the findings paint a picture of quite extensive use, usually carried out for purposes other than those emphasized by either pessimists or optimists. The role of Ludenic (or play) motivation and behavior is given special attention in the context of studying the use of this computerized application as a medium.

QSIA: a web-based environment for learning, assessing and knowledge sharing in communities

This paper describes a Web-based and distributed system named QSIA that serves as an environment for learning, assessing and knowledge sharing. QSIA - Questions Sharing and Interactive Assignments-offers a unified infrastructure for developing, collecting, managing and sharing of knowledge items. QSIA enhances collaboration in authoring via online recommendations and generates communities of teachers and learners. At the same time, QSIA fosters individual learning and might promote high-order thinking skills among its users. QSIAs community, conceptual architecture, structure overview and implementations are discussed.

Wikibooks in higher education

In this case study, wiki technology was applied to the development of an introductory academic textbook on information systems. While the development, production and distribution of traditional textbooks are influenced by commercial interests, the wikitextbook was developed collaboratively by faculty and by students, and was made available online free of charge. After about two years of activity, the wikitextbook accumulated 564 sub-chapters, co-authored by undergraduate and graduate students in more than 20 classes offered by seven academic departments across three Israeli universities. We discuss the potential of wikitextbooks as vehicles of empowerment to students, teachers, and the discipline. This type of collaborative online technology intimates an influence on the status-quo in academic education in favor of less empowered stakeholders. However, caution is advised in drawing premature conclusions from results reported here. The implementation of wikitextbook should be augmented by a careful study of cultural, societal, behavioral and pedagogic variables.

Psychological Aspects of Cyberspace: Online Motivational Factors: Incentives for Participation and Contribution in Wikipedia

Cyberspace has introduced new and intriguing means for knowledge sharing as well as new structures of mediated knowledge-building communities. Considering the various forms of online communities, it should be difficult to overstate the significance of Wikipedia as a landmark in building communal knowledge repositories. Wikipedia is an online collaboratively written encyclopedia. It has unique aspects of users’ involvement in the production of content and its function as a community. In less than five years of existence, Wikipedia has acquired both avid advocates and ardent adversaries. Although there have been some public and academic debates about the quality of its content, as the rapid growth of its articles and numbers of active users (Wikipedians) continues, most people agree that at least the English version of Wikipedia is approaching critical mass where substantial content disasters should become rare. Wikipedia’s existence and success rely on users’ inputs. Our chapter focuses on Wikipedians’ incentives for contributing to Wikipedia. The popular observation is that Wikipedia only works in practice. In theory, it can never work. How does Wikipedia mobilize the levels of participation that make it “work in practice”? Wikipedia’s growth, from the time of its foundation in 2001, has been impressive in all conceivable dimensions. Expansion metrics have accelerated in terms of volume, numbers of articles, visitors, and percentage of contributors. There are, by the time of this writing, 250 language editions of Wikipedia. The English-language version is the largest. It contains more than two million articles. The German-language version has more than half a million articles and the French, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese versions each boast over 100,000 articles.

Information sharing as enabler for the virtual team: an experimental approach to assessing the role of electronic mail in disintermediation

Abstract. This paper is an attempt to document empirically the relation between information sharing accomplished via electronic mail and the performance of teams. We report on an experimental study of the role of electronic mail in the operation of supply chains. A variation of the well known ‘Beer Game’ role‐playing simulation game was computerized and implemented in an internet‐based environment to study the information‐sharing behaviour of teams. A total of 76 teams of four players each competed to achieve best net team profit. Results of the simulation game permit a detailed examination of email use in an organizational context. Findings indicate the expected significant correlation between email use to share information up the supply chain and net team profit. In other words, sharing information in the team has a positive impact on performance. The recorded behaviour of managers in the online simulation indicates that team members use electronic mail successfully to attempt disintermediation of the supply chain. When information is shared online, teams perform significantly better.

Studying Gamification: The Effect of Rewards and Incentives on Motivation

Gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts to encourage a desired type of behavior. In recent years gamification systems have been applied in marketing as well as non-business contexts such as politics, health, or interactive systems and education.