A7AberleHenriksonFischerAparicio

A7AberleHenriksonFischerAparicio

To-Do

• describe the most important themes from the lectures for your project
• describe important themes for your project that are not discussed in any of the course lectures

describe the most important themes from the lectures for your project

A large theme discussed in lectures (mainly lecture 11) that has to do with our project is Cultures of Participation.  Wikipedia and KNOL both center around participation.  Without people wanting to participate in their sites, the sites would be just homepages with nothing to display.  If people just posted things, and no one read them, it also wouldn't be very exciting.  However, these sites have people writing, reading, and even discussing topics of interest. 

Another theme that relates to our project is Distributed Cognition from lecture 3.  Not every person in the world can keep every fact out there in their heads.  It's just not possible.  Sites like Wikipedia and KNOL help to distribute this information not only between one person and technology, but between multiple people.  They help anyone who cares about something, learn about it easily and share their own information about that and other subjects.  Which is the core of the symmetry of ignorance - people getting together because they want to know what others know and share with others what they know.

Usability and Sociability Factors is a theme mainly discussed in lecture 12.  Usability is important in large websites.  The designers need to make the sites easy for everyone to use.  If things could be difficult for a user, the designers need to make a good help section.  With the use of Meta-Design, designers can make it so that there is a high ceiling for anyone wanting to do more than just the obvious things that designers can come up with.  The designers need to do all this, and more, while not taking away the users' liberty to do what they want.  Sociability comes into play on the sites because there are a lot of people using them.  People will tell their friends about things to go look at.  They will make pages about things they're interested in, fulfilling their desire to give back to the community.  On KNOL, users who post articles can be recognized for their work.

describe important themes for your project that are not discussed in any of the course lectures

One important theme, not previously described in lectures, is the way to use a meta-design product such as Wikipedia and KNOL. One can generally use these products as collaborators, consumers, or prosumers. Through these people the product will expand and evolve over time, which, in the case of these encyclopedias, creates a huge library of information.

Another important theme that has not been discussed in lecture is the credibility, relevance, and coverage of information inserted in meta-design products such as Wikipedia and KNOL. These are important factors that one needs to consider when looking for specific information. Meta-design products can be modified by many end-users, therefore these aspects are important to keep in mind. This is why we must study the aspects to determine how they would affect information gathering.