WIKIBOOKS AND WIKIBOOKIANS:
LOOSELY-COUPLED COMMUNITY OR THE
FUTURE OF THE TEXTBOOK INDUSTRY?
Meng-Fen Grace Lin
University of Hawaii at Manoa, gracelin@hawaii.edu
Suthiporn Sajjapanroj
Indiana University, ssajjapa@indiana.edu
Curt Bonk
Indiana University, cjbonk@indiana.edu
Ed-Media 2009, Honolulu, HI

Technologies drastically changing the
Textbook/Publishing Industry

Pocket School Project, Stanford University
(Mexico in 2008; Rwanda in January 2009)

Apple iPhone 3G S Announced (June 2009)

Scribd Signs Book Deal (June, 2009)

E-book Readers (May 2008)

Digital textbooks: Hits California
(May-June 2009)

Enter FlatWorld Knowledge
(8m of VC in March 2009)

Research on Wikis and Wikibooks

Wikimedia Foundation (includes Wikipedia)

Wikibooks Main Page
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

Wikibooks Website

Types of wikibooks created…
 What types of books have you created contributed
to in the Wikibooks Website

Sample Wikibook (cooking)

Sample Wikibook (The Web 2.0)

Wikijunior (for kids birth to age 12)

Purpose of Study
 A follow-up survey study to verify:
 Male domination?
 Unsatisfied with Wikibooks environment?
 Multiple roles?
 A follow-up survey study to further understand:
 Wikibookians’ identity
 Inner working of the community
 Experience lived as a Wikibookians

Methods Used
 Survey
 46 items and 3 open-ended questions
 Demographics
 Identity
 Experience
 Community
 Participants:
 Actual participated in Wikibooks
 Through revision history
 Email user function on site
 1900 emails sent; 167 valid responses

Findings - Age
Age Previous study (80 Current study (167
participants) participants)
Under 18 19% 8%
18-25 39% 35%
26-34 25% 20%
35-50 12% 25%
Over 50 5% 13%

Findings - Gender
Previous study (80 participants) Current study (167 participants)

Findings – Education
Degrees Previous study (80 Current study (167
participants) participants)
Lower than high school 10% 5%
High school 29% 23%
Two-year college 11% 10%
Four-year college 23% 26%
Master’s or graduate
level degree 16% 21%
Doctoral or post
graduate degree 11% 16%

Findings - Location

Findings - Language

Findings - Language

Discussion - demographic
 Male domination
 Young but more evenly distributed
 All education background
 North America and Europe
 English-speaking

Findings - Experience
 How would you label yourself in terms of
Wikibooks?

Findings - Experience
 How long have you been contributing to or
editing in Wikibooks?

Findings - Experience
 How often are your Wikibooks edited, expanded,
or modified

Findings - Experience
 The level of your contribution/involvement
How long have you been contributing to or
editing in Wikibooks?
1=low 10=high
Our study average = 5

Discussion - experience
 Not experts
 Not long
 Not frequent
 Not highly involved

Findings - Identity
 The main goal of Wikibooks is to create virtual
learning resources for education

Findings - Identity
 What is/are reason(s) that you have coordinated
or completed one or more Wikibooks

Findings - Identity
 To what degree do you trust the information
provided in most Wikibooks
1=low 10=high
Our study average = 7

Findings - Identity
 What skills and competencies have you developed
since becoming a member of Wikibooks

Skills and Competencies Gained: Quote
 A: Editing skills (which is much different from
writing) since mostly I am involved with cleaning up
or relocating existing work to improve the
readability and structure of the book. Wikibooks
are never completed…..They constantly change,
evolve, expand, condense, and adapt as writers
and editors gain and lose interest.

Findings - Identity
 A Wikibook written by a large group of people is
better than a Wikibook written by a small group
of people

Findings - Identity
 The number of collaborators you had

Findings - Identity
 How will you use the most recently completed or
current Wikibook project (check all that apply)

Discussion- Identity
High trust in content
Few or no collaborator
Variety of skills
Altruism

Findings - Community
 Do you feel that you are part of the Wikibooks
community

Findings - Community
 Is it necessary to provide apprenticeship or
mentoring for new people in the Wikibook
environment

Findings - Community
 Are there people who have helped you with your
Wikibook projects

Findings - Community
 What has helped your level of comfort

Findings - Community
 How long does it take to learn how to use
Wikibooks

Findings - Community
 Do you help or apprentice others in their
Wikibook efforts

Findings - Community
 How is someone typically apprenticed into the
Wikibooks environment

Findings - Community
 The process of finding compromise and agreement
is more important than the product of the Wikibook

Findings - Community
 What is your view of Wikibooks

Findings - Community
 “I simply don't contribute a whole lot; I prefer
simply to learn, and Wikibooks does an excellent
job at that”

View of Wikibooks: Quote
 I started out contributing to the Electronics
wikibook and the Robotics book, occasionally. I
watched it turn into a complete mess, as a single
person turned a book about Electronics into a
grand unified book about Life, the Universe, and
Everything…..There are just too few people on
Wikibooks to fight off such disruptions, so it just
goes on uncontrolled.

Discussion - Community
Loose-coupled community
 Common practice and shared goals
 Focus on sharing and learning
 Friendship and socializing not important

Points to ponder
 How can Wikibooks become more of a community
with apprenticeship? Should it?
 Will people assume a high level status in society
as a wikibookian just as writers and novelists are
today?
 What if schools in California and Texas and other
states start adopting Wikibooks for K-12
education?
 How would wiki-curriculum created by children
work?

Future research
 Asynchronous apprenticeship
 In-depth ethnographical understanding of the lived
experience of a Wikibookian
 Communicate with Wikimedia foundation (see
milestones below); suggest improvements of tools;
keep monitoring changes at site

Future research
 User aspects: talk to students and instructors who
have created or used Wikibooks
 Explore Wikibooks junior
 Research K-12 classroom development and use
of Wikibooks
 Create government initiatives for free and open
books

Questions and Comments…
 Note: We have posted many wiki papers
to the Wiki-RIKI site:
 http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/