Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Personal Communication Networks And Their Positive Effects On Online Collaboration And Outcome Quality On Wikipedia, Michail Tsikerdekis

Information Science Faculty Publications

Online collaborative projects have been utilized in a variety of ways over the past decade, such as bringing people together to build open source software or developing the world's largest free encyclopedia. Personal communication networks as a feature do not exist in all collaborative projects. It is currently unclear if a designer's decision to include a personal communication network in a collaborative project's structure affects outcome quality. In this study, I investigated Wikipedia's personal communication network and analyzed which Wikipedia editors are utilizing it and how they are connected to outcome quality. Evidence suggests that people who utilize these networks …