Version-controlled documents, such as Wikipedia or program codes in Subversion, demands a novel methodology to be analyzed efficiently. The documents are continually edited by one or more authors in contrast of the case of static documents. These collaborative processses make traditional methodologies to be ineffective, yet needs for efficient methodologies are rapidly developing. This paper proposes two new models based on Local Space-time Smoothing (LSS) which captures important revision patterns while Cumulative Revision Map (CRM) tracks word insertions and deletions in particular positions of a document. These two methods enable us to understand and visualize the revision patterns intuitively and efficiently. Synthetic data and real-world data are used to demonstrate its applicability.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Scardamalia’s (2002) socio-cognitive determinants of knowledge building emerge in a computer-supported collaborative writing task, and to understand students’ perceptions of knowledge building experience and the use of tools, including wikis, to support the collaborative writing process. The setting of this study was a graduate level online course on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), in which all course activities were conducted collaboratively in an online environment. Data sources included: transcripts of online inputs in the wiki areas; interviews with 15 participants; participants’ reflective journals; transcripts of asynchronous online discussions and synchronous chats. Data were analyzed using content analysis for the transcripts of wiki areas and grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was used in the analysis of data from the interviews. Results of the data analysis indicated that the three groups in this study participated in the collaborative knowledge building activity in different ways. The three factors that influenced their participation in the activity included: group dynamics, collaborative writing task, and collaborative writing tools. These factors interacted with each another and impacted their knowledge building discourse in the following ways: improvable ideas, constructive use of authoritative sources, epistemic agency, and embedded and transformative assessment. As a result of their engagement in knowledge building discourse, participants successfully completed the collaborative writing project and shared a strong sense of community and co-ownership of the knowledge product. The findings of this study may shed light on the strategies and environmental factors that encourage knowledge building discourse as well as the synergetic combination of technology tools and knowledge building task. In addition, understanding the process of knowledge building in a computer-supported collaborative writing task and the participants perception of knowledge building and the use of tools may help instructor better prepare learners to become collaborative learners and effective knowledge workers. / text

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 6, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-90).

Wiki Message Linking (WML) is a group communication tool that will be used between group members and the group leader. By using WML, group web pages are created and modified easily. From the WML, new pages are created and owned by their creators. The group leader and the page owner can modify the page, and the owner may give permission for other people to modify the web page; member can edit their works online and the leader can review the works and correct the works directly from the WML.

Personal home pages are outgrowing their playful beginnings to serve serious purposes. At the forefront of this emergence is academia, where they are becoming a meaningful way for researchers to engage each other. Yet, the medium is still in its infancy: The medium, its adopters, and their practices are unduly constrained by current technology. To better study the meaning and use of personal home pages in academia, I created the AniAniWeb personal-home-page system to loosen these constraints. AniAniWeb applies wiki technology to facilitate easy editing, to enable interaction, and to focus the user on content creation. Others began adopting AniAniWeb in fall 2003. This dissertation centers on a case study of six graduate students and their experience with AniAniWeb over a period of two years. Their practices are viewed through three analytical lenses. Media theory focuses on the technology. Communities of practice focuses on the social context. Core identity theory focuses on the individual. When combined, these frameworks lead to a rich understanding of personal home pages in academia. Based on observations and interviews, issues of design, technology, meaning, and use are addressed.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Bruckman, Amy; Committee Member: Grinter, Rebecca; Committee Member: Grudin, Jonathan; Committee Member: Guzdial, Mark; Committee Member: Kolodner, Janet. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

This study explores the use of wiki in supporting a science project undertaken in a Hong Kong secondary school through a mixed method approach involving triangulation of questionnaire survey, interviews, and analysis of students? wikis. The findings showed positive results on students? motivations, enjoyments, effort input, and perceived value. More important, the results highlighted the fact that satisfaction of students? perceived needs from teacher?s autonomy support improves their attributes, attitudes, and expectations of learning outcomes in general. The researcher identifies a discrepancy between students? expectations and their actual achievements of the learning outcomes. Specifically, students think in a higher order and construct knowledge at a wider level when comparing with what they have expected whereas their expectations of generic skills development significantly outweighed what they have actually achieved. To bridge this discrepancy, the researcher suggested that (a) flexibly balancing the structure and freedom of wiki, (b) carefully planning the project duration, (c) scaffolding in wiki project, (d) carefully choosing of the project topics, (e) explicitly emphasizing the learning outcomes, and (f) raising students? information literacy are all essential. The findings also indicated the exists of limitations in this small scale study and thus further investigations on the pedagogical challenges of integrating wiki in science project learning are required. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Although the benefits of group and pair work in the second language (L2) classroom have been extensively studied, most documented research has focused on the use of oral tasks and spoken interaction between learners. Recently however, researchers have begun to investigate the advantages of collaboration on written work. More specifically, with the advancements in computer technology and web-based collaborative platforms like wikis, there has been a growing awareness of the educational possibilities of wikis to enhance L2 writing instruction. This study followed a pretest/posttest repeated measures design to investigate the impact and students' perceptions of wiki-based collaborative writing activities on individual writing performance. The study involved 12 university students in a TOEFL preparation course at a large university in Bogota, Colombia. Students were divided into two groups: the experimental group (n=8) engaged in a series of wiki-based collaborative writing activities and focused practice between pre and posttests, while the control (n=4) received no treatment. Two individual writing samples (pre and posttest) composed by each participant under timed conditions were quantitatively analyzed using the three linguistic developmental measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. While statistically significant differences were not evident for measures of fluency or accuracy, descriptive statistics showed an overall positive impact for collaborative writing on individual learners' written fluency. Analysis of complexity measures revealed mixed results with respect to learning gains. Further analysis of perception data reported by learners in an exit survey disclosed their positive attitude towards perceived linguistic benefits with regard to the wiki-based collaborative writing activities. Both theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study, limitations, and directions for future research are presented.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how categorisation of marginalised groups is done on Swedish Wikipedia. Taking its starting point in social constructionism and critical knowledge organisation research, classic knowledge organization is seen as inherently flawed. In its quest for universal knowledge organisation systems, the fact that knowledge is contingent (emerging and constructed), is obscured. This runs the risk of marginalising marginalised groups further. Instead it is claimed that knowledge organization systems ought to strive for transparency by inviting its users to witness and take part in the knowledge process. A discourse analysis was made on two source materials: an interview study with three editors of Swedish Wikipedia and openly available discussion threads from Swedish Wikipedia. The result of the discourse analysis shows that the wider to write at Wikipedia discourse contains two nodal points: neutrality and consensus. The neutrality nodal point is a floating signifier in the sense that two different discourses try to give it two different meanings. In one of the discourses neutrality is seen as possible to achieve when describing reality. Categorisation is uncomplicated, it is simply a case of reflecting the categories that already exist ”out there”. In another discourse neutrality is seen as something impossible to achieve when describing reality because it is ever-changing and many-faceted. Categorisation is hard and complicated. Between these two discourses there is a discursive struggle which is mitigated by the nodal point consensus. Through discussions leading to consensus a ”neutral enough” way of describing the world is achieved. Categorisation on Wikipedia can thus be seen to achieve the transparency that critical knowledge organization research requests: the categories are results of discussions that all reading users can access. But there is doubt as to how many of the reading users of Wikipedia actually find and read the discussion pages. If there are only a few who ever finds the discussions, the transparency remains low and the constructed nature of Wikipedias knowledge organization system remains obscured. This is a two years Master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This ethnographic study examined middle school students engaged in a virtual learning environment used in concert with face-to-face instruction in order to complete a collaborative research project. Thirty-eight students from three eighth grade classes participated in this study where data were collected through observation of student work within the virtual learning environment, an online survey, and focus group sessions with students involved in the project. Results indicated students found the virtual learning environment to be valuable as a platform to complete a collaborative research assignment because of portability, ease of use, and organization. Embedded resources within the environment were helpful because of the convenience. Other people, including peers and teachers, were the preferred source of help when problems navigating the environment or finding information arose. Students communicated within the virtual learning environment as a social outlet, a way to check in, and a means to offer content related comments. Ideally the study's findings will give insight into student experiences in a virtual learning environment in order to help educators design more effective learning experiences and incorporate useful supports within such environments.