Motivation Model in Community-Built System - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 189

Table 8.1 Different aspects of the collaboration process
Definition Key points and context

Collaboration is an interaction between multiple
parties (two or more). All parties are doing
work with a shared purpose or goal, and all
parties will benefit from their efforts. In addition,
collaboration can happen across boundaries.
(Based on [ 33 ])

Context: Organization
Key points [ 33 ]: - all relationships, is often
a trade
- both parties invest, and both parties
receive something in return

Collaboration is a conversational, relatively
unstructured, iterative, but nevertheless, active
process during which the participants work
together to achieve a goal and reach a decision
or a solution. (Based on [ 43 ])

Context: Learning
Key points [ 44 ]: - collaboration requires
consensus, mutual understanding,
reciprocity, and trust

Collaboration refers to informal, cooperative
relationships that build shared vision and
understanding needed for conceptualizing cross-
functional linkages in the context of knowledge
intensive activities. Collaboration facilitates the
acquisition and integration of resources through
external integration and cooperation with other
cooperative or supporting agents, conducted on
a basis of common consensus, trust, cooperation,
and sharing by a multifunctional team of
experienced knowledge workers (Based on [ 8 ])

Context: Knowledge sharing
Key points [ 8 ]: - collaboration requires
complete understanding and effective
sharing of information and knowledge
throughout the development cycle

part in the collaboration process wants the repository content to be evaluated. When
an individual objects to the repository content, the disputed knowledge object is
created or edited.

8.3.2 Wiki: An Example of the Community-Built System

Let us analyze a Wiki system as a working example of the community-built system.
Wiki is a special kind of website, the contents of which can be edited by visitors
[ 45 ]. It is a web-based hypertext system that supports community-oriented author-
ing, in order to rapidly and collaboratively build the content by editing the page
online in a web browser [ 37 , 46 , 47 ]. The Wiki also represents a class of asynchro-
nous communication tools [ 61 , 62 ]. The main differences between Wiki and other
tools (such as blogs or threaded discussions) are the following [ 30 ]: the content
authorship is collaborative, not single or multiple, dynamic nature, and nonlinear
and multipage construction. Technically, Wiki systems consist of four basic ele-
ments [ 48 ]: (1) content, (2) a template that defines the layout of the Wiki pages, (3)
a Wiki engine, a software that handles all the business logic of the Wiki, (4) a Wiki
page, the page that is created by the Wiki engine displaying the content in a web
browser. Wiki server technology enables the creation of associative hypertexts with
nonlinear navigation structures [ 46 ]. The Wiki mechanism is found to be popular in