This is a very interesting project that looks at the use of mass collaboration as a tool for education. Specifically, it is a study that takes various math problems using the Pythagorean Theorem and lets users rate and then improve them. Take a run through it — it doesn’t take long. (If you don’t happen to be a “math person,” the math isn’t very difficult.:)
If you visit the site and go through it, make sure to follow it through to the survey at the end. It presents some very interesting and thought-provoking questions about the collaborative process, application of this process to education, motivations of participants, and even the perceptions of quality of materials produced this way vs. textbooks.
I hope the results are published. I can hardly wait to see them.
Initial results of study are here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~taleahma/papers/Aleahmad%20et%20al%20-%20Open%20Community%20Authoring%20of%20Targeted%20Worked%20Example%20Problems%20-%20ITS%202008.pdf
I’m reading them now…
Karen,
Thanks for posting the experiment here on your blog and I’m glad to read what you’ve written about it. I will indeed be publishing the results at the completion. The paper you posted in the comments has the results of a previous experiment on which this one is based. In that one on authoring, I invited people to submit new worked examples from scratch. Now I’m looking at the reliability of volunteer ratings of those contributions and the quality of attempts to improve upon them.
After a wave of participation from people I invited to return from the last study, participation has dropped off considerably. So I was excited to see the link here on your blog. Unfortunately, no one has followed it and joined in yet. If anyone one’s reading this and considering it, please do. It doesn’t take much time and the odds are in your favor right now in the lottery. :)
My research is on participation and quality in open development of education resources. This study on worked example problems is just one aspect of a more general research endeavor. I would also like to analyze other content communities, such as, I don’t know, an open dictionary. ;) If you’re open to such a collaboration, please get in touch.
-Turadg