Research:Perception on Wikidata Editor Contribution Dashboard
This page documents a research project in progress.
Information may be incomplete and change as the project progresses.
Please contact the project lead before formally citing or reusing results from this page.
Wikidata is a structured data peer production (SDPP) platform in which contributors can create or add to various items. Currently, editors are not able to, in combination, view their contributions and see how these contributions are used in other platforms in the Wikimedia community. There exist tools that allow editors to view their contributions. However, the tool we aim to build using the results from this study enables the editor to learn more about the effects of their contributions in addition to showing statistics about which items they contributed to. We believe that this will help editors gain a better understanding of the extent of their contributions within the Wikimedia community.
Context[edit]
About Wikidata[edit]
Basic information about Wikidata can be found here.
Anticipated Contribution[edit]
We will conduct an 1 hour interview study on editors in which the editor will interact with a prototype of a Wikidata edit history platform. This platform will allow them to better understand how their contributions are used inside the Wikimedia community. We also like to identify through the interview process if there’s any additional information that the participants would like to see when viewing information about their contributions and if any style adjustments should be made. The primary outcome of the study will be eliciting feedback on the current features of the platform. We will end our study after we reach data saturation.
Methods[edit]
Through a qualitative interview study, we aim to understand what Wikidata editors are looking for when they want to learn more about their contributions, not only in Wikidata but also inside the Wikimedia community. Based on this study, we will develop a platform allowing editors to better understand their contributions and the effects of their contributions.
Recruitment[edit]
We planned to recruit Wikidata editors in the following ways:
1. Post invitation message on Wikidata:Project_chat.
2. Send out an individual invitation message on user's User:Talk page. We plan to recruit 15 editors so we expect to send out around 50 invitations.
Anyone who is interested in working on this project with us could leave a message on https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User_talk:Chuankaz or email us at ratna031@umn.edu so that we could set up an interview.
Interview Structure[edit]
1. Explain the tool to the user. Ask for their reactions, answering their questions.
2. Give the user the existing application prototype with a list of tasks and questions that will be shared verbally. Observe how the user performs these tasks.
3. Take note of the editor's of the application. Notice the time takes to figure out how to take each action, what the user's intuitive response is to each action, and any difficulties they have when using the existing application.
4. Ask questions about the tool and gather the editor's final thoughts.
A consent form and interview question draft will be provided.
Timeline[edit]
2022.3 IRB review
2020.4 Receive input and feedback from the community, project modification
2020.4 Recruit participants and conduct interview
2020.4-2020.5 Data analysis and Platform Development
2020.5-TBD
Policy, Ethics and Human Subjects Research[edit]
Confidentiality[edit]
The records of this study will be kept private. In any sort of report, we might publish, we will not include any information that will make it possible to identify a subject. Research records will be stored securely in a University of Minnesota-owned GitHub repo and Google Drive, and only the contacts of this project in this project will have access to the records. The recording data will be used for data analysis and only students evolved in this project will have access to the data. The data will be deleted as soon as the transcription has been done.
Voluntary Nature of the Study[edit]
Participation in this study is voluntary. If you decide to participate, you are free to not answer any questions or withdraw at any time.
Participation[edit]
If one is a Wikidata editor and would like to participate in this study, they can reach out to ratna031@umn.edu for more information.