Research:Wikitalk: Chatting with Your Fellow Student Editors
This page documents a proposed research project.
Information may be incomplete and may change before the project starts.
In our study, students who are participating in courses that use Wikipedia writing assignments will be invited to take part in an hour-long online, video discussion with 4-6 other students. In these sessions, students will socialize with each other, share their experience on Wikipedia, have Wikipedia-related discussions, as well as provide feedbacks for each other’s work. We will offer the tool that they are going to use and carefully-designed discussion agenda.
The purpose of our study is twofold: first, we want to help improve student editors’ experience at Wikipedia, by providing them a chance to communicate with their fellow editors; second, we want to evaluate whether “collective socialization” (socialize students in a cohort) should be used as a technique to facilitate the socialization of newcomers in online communities.
Methods[edit]
We will invite students who are currently enrolled in one or more Wikipedia courses by posting on their user talk pages or sending them an email, depending on the permissions they set up when registering for Wikipedia. The following invitation will be used in both recruiting methods, which includes a link to our consent form:
You are invited to a Wikipedia discussion session with your peers!
Hi, [user]! Your experience as student editor on Wikipedia is important, as we hope you can get the most out of your Wikipedia coursework. We are inviting you to join an hour-long, video discussion session with a few fellow student editors from other universities who are also completing Wikipedia writing assignment. During the discussion, you will have the chance to communicate with your peers and learn more about how to work successfully work in Wikipedia. The discussion will take place at [scheduled time]. To sign up for the discussion, you’ll need to register a Talkabout account here[url], and then sign up for the slot here[url] Please feel free to contact me (zyao2@cs.cmu.edu) if you have questions or trouble signing up. This research is part of a research project and has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at Carnegie Mellon University. You can click here to go to Carnegie Mellon’s Informed Consent form [url] and learn more about this research.
Here, I attached a link to our consent form and a screenshot of Talkabout, the tool that students are going to use to chat.
Timeline[edit]
Studies will hopefully start on February, 2017.
Policy, Ethics and Human Subjects Research[edit]
Our work has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at Carnegie Mellon University (approved on 11/22/2016 per 45 CFR 46.110 (7) and 21 CFR 56.110).
Results[edit]
Once your study completes, describe the results an their implications here. Don't forget to make status=complete above when you are done.