Academic Research Paper on OpenSim Community
Robin Teigland, Paul Di Gangi, and Zeynep Yetis recently finished an academic paper based on their research of the OpenSim Community. Below is the abstract. If you have any questions about their research, please do not hesitate to contact them.
Setting the Stage: Exploring Sustainability of a Private-collective Community
Abstract
While the nature of the firm has long been established as the dominant form of organizing for value creation, emergent forms of organizing such as the private-collective community model have recently gained attention from researchers and practitioners. Little is known about how such communities, where private goods from stakeholders are shared and freely distributed among a public collective, sustain themselves. The purpose of this research is to examine how the resources, stakeholders, and overarching network structure in which these are embedded influence the sustainability of the community. Using semi-structured interviews, archival data, and social network analysis, we explore these items in detail and provide initial findings from an ongoing research study of the OpenSim community. We conclude with future directions, expected contributions, and the limitations of this line of research.
Keywords: private-collective model, online community, emergent forms of organizing, social network analysis, resource dependency, stakeholders, open source software, virtual worlds
The full paper may be downloaded here.
Maria Korolov wrote an article on the research in Hypergrid Business.
/Robin
7 Comments to “Academic Research Paper on OpenSim Community”
Leave a Reply
[...] http://nordicworlds.net/2012/01/15/academic-research-paper-on-opensim-community/ [...]
How do you factor in these pieces of information..
Opensim hits new low on Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends/?q=opensim&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Opensim hits new low on Google Insights
http://www.google.com/insights/search/?hl=en-US#q=opensim&cmpt=q
@James: interesting to see these trends, but our study so far has been to analyze until 2009. So as we move forward with our analysis, we will keep this in mind. However, it could be a delayed gartner hype curve we are seeing here since many learned about opensim after secondlife.
But these trends and the “sustainability” that we are interested in are not necessarily correlated. One can still have a sustainable community even though the amount of public interest in the community as indicated by the total number of people searching for information on it falls. Thoughts?
1. Recently, I made postings that converge these declining “Information”-driven behaviors from Google with the marketing approach AIDA (attention, “Information”, desire, action), and concluded that a drop in Information behavior points to drop in ADIA Marketing Delivery effectiveness.
- AIDA (marketing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)
- Reference to the combination of AIDA marketing approach and using Google Trends for virtual world trend assessment… http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067665/The-Decision-Making-Funnel-Stage-2-Interest
2. I also concluded that this marketing delivery gap points a much greater Quality Management problem…
Virtual World players seem to overly engage in tool or Software Development issues. Their system boundary lines more or less end at their virtual sandbox, to put it in vivid words.
Yet… Software development is one side of the Integrated coin: Software Development + Market Delivery.
From a quality management viewpoint, Sustainable system boundary lines would need to extend to the out-world newbie at his bus stop… so this is a much greater Systems Boundary Line Gap.
Thus as remedy, I point to the efforts and work of the Software Engineering Institute SEI (sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and US Dept of Defense), who have developed the Capability Maturity Model Integration CMMI, which addresses the integrated combination: Software Development + Market Delivery.
- Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach whose goal is to help organizations improve their performance… CMMI in software engineering and organizational development is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements for effective process improvement. CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.
- According to the Software Engineering Institute (SEI, 2008), CMMI helps “integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMMI#Overview
- For software development people, please check: CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV), v1.3 was released in November 2010. It addresses product and service development processes http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/10tr033.cfm
- For market delivery people, please check: CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC), v1.3 was released in November 2010. It addresses guidance for delivering services within an organization and to external customers http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/10tr034.cfm
In a story-telling form…
If you run a barber shop, you want potential customers to gain attention, interest, and desire for a hair cut, then walk into the barber shop and order a haircut, and then sit on the barber chair to receive the hair cut… that’s the process. As soon as interest drops, something is off-track…
So, system boundary lines ending at body-counting empty barber chairs is not the big picture…
Sustainable system boundary lines need to extend to customers with a need for a hair cut, who seek a barber shop…
Ooops… not Information-driven, I meant Interest-driven in all instances above…
[...] with future directions, expected contributions, and the limitations of this line of research.Via nordicworlds.net AKPC_IDS += "3301,";Popularity: unranked [?] Filed Under: From the metaverse community [...]