The Developmental Arc of Participation in Massive Voluntary Collaboration April 17, 2007

Abstract
The Internet has facilitated the emergence of a new era of human collaboration. Trends in usage of open source software, web-logs (commonly called blogs), so called wikis (websites that allow contributors to add their own content), and user forums facilitate combinations of online community space, tools for creating information resources, and new modes of coordinated effort among contributors which we call massive voluntary collaboration (MVC). In my talk, I will describe a model to shed light on the developmental arc of participation in MVC. This model integrates four converging perspectives from the social movements, cooperation, voluntarism and Communities of Practice literatures. This model regards MVC as a developmental arc of participation in which contributors engage in activities to share knowledge and learn about specific topics of their choice. This integrated theory brings an important complement to existing models of collaboration and explains distributed voluntary cooperation.

Speaker bio
Kevin Crowston is a Professor of Information Studies at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies. His current research interests focus on new ways of organizing made possible by the use of information technology. This work approaches the issue in several ways: empirical studies of coordination-intensive processes in human organizations (especially virtual organization); theoretical characterizations of coordination problems and alternative methods for managing them; and design and empirical evaluation of systems to support people working together.

Official Website: http://cci.mit.edu/SeminarsSpring07.html