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Ann Majchrzak’s Wiki Research

Ann Majchrzak presented some of her recent research at GSU yesterday. Fascinating work. She developed two constructs:

  • Expertise Sharers – those who freely contribute expert knowledge to a wiki
  • Expertise Integrators – those who build-on, synthesize, and convert expert knowledge to make a coherent wiki

While people definitely act as both expertise sharers and integrators, defining these two roles is quite helpful. It also ties in well to this article, which basically says that 1400 obsessed freaks (read: integrators) who all know each other, wrote the worlds largest encyclopedia for free over 4 years. Incredible.

I would guess they are all obsessive compulsive copy editors. I salute them.

January 23rd, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: commentary | One comment - (Comments are closed)

How to speed up your PhD program

thechronicleI read an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education today titled: Economists Ponder How to Help Speed Up Ph.D. Completion. It tells of Wendy Stock‘s study (pdf) of 586 students who entered 27 doctoral programs in 2002.

After five years, 27 percent of the students had finished their degrees, 34 percent had dropped out, and 39 percent were still working toward their degrees.

Not too good! The study tried to tease out the explanatory factors:

Students are less likely to finish on time if the program does not offer every first-year student a shared office space. If a large number of students drop out in the first two years, the survivors are less likely to finish on time. And—to Ms. Stock’s surprise—students are more likely to finish on time if they enter as part of a large cohort.

I share office space with 6-8 students, nobody has dropped out since the center began six years ago, and my cohort has 4 students. Perhaps I am right on track. It also helps to be a part of 20-25 students who are also studying in the same discipline.

January 16th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: commentary | Comments are closed

The implications of Informal Learning

I was browsing Gartner’s Hype Cycle Blog, and found something interesting by Richard Straub at the Training Zone on Informal Learning.

He shares that in IBM’s 2008 survey of 1,100 CEOs:

more than 40% are changing their enterprise models to be more open and collaborative.

A significant number… Unfortunately he does not elaborate on this point, but rather the important role of Informal Learning in today’s world. The first comment states that Informal Learning is what we do everyday – learning on the job, in the process of “putting out fires”. I would agree, but I think Straub’s remark shows there is something more:

“We are on the threshold of a paradigm shift in learning. We have new learning environments and tools that enable us to access knowledge more effectively and to share and collaborate in better ways.”

Even though this sounds like a cheap management book, I agree with it. It seems that the relatively small number of people who are very active (look at Tim O’reilly)  in the blogosphere operate under a different paradigm than the mainstream. But, things are changing.

January 15th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: commentary, open-innovation | Comments are closed
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