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.