Mass collaboration

This page is a method. The page identifier is Op_en2015
Moderator:Nobody (see all) Click here to sign up.
Give your opinion to the peer rating of the content of this page. {{ #opasnet_rater: }}
Upload data Show results

Mass collaboration is a new kind of approach to carrying out risk assessments. It takes the assessment product, the description of a piece of reality, as the central object which a diverse group of people contribute to and communicate by. In relation to the central object, the product, in principle everyone is seen as merely a contributor and no contributor has any more ownership of the product or a part of the product than anyone else. The product of the assessment is thus seen as a common property produced for a given, and preferably explicated, purpose.

References

Introduction

Mass collaboration means more than just dividing tasks within a group into pieces that belong to someone. It is a way of working together on a shared set of tasks for a common goal. It makes use of the collective knowledge of groups and plurality of views in order to improve the output of the work. Its best properties can be seen in situations where there is a diverse (and maybe unknown) group of potential participants who possess different kinds of knowledge and represent a variety of value judgments about the issue that is being worked on.

Mass collaboration can be seen as a form of group communication which results are manifested and explicated in the product of the work. The product also serves as a platform or a medium for communication between the contributors. This means that the contributions to developing the product are messages that are sent by the contributors in form of manipulating the object that is being worked on and received by other contributors through observing the product. Through this communication by contribution the product thus develops into an explication of the shared understanding about the issue that is being worked on.

Mass collaboration can also be considered as a form of collective learning. The following example on collaborative design and some explanatory sentences about mass collaboration illustrate well the basic ideas underlying mass collaboration. The citation below has been copied from collaborative learning-work article in Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia in the web. Wikipedia itself is also an example of a system that builds on the principle of mass collaboration.

For example, a work group engaging in the process of design would ideally need to pool their individual knowledge in order to create a new product. They will eventually want to create a shared meaning, which would allow them to take action together to carry out the design. Creation of shared knowledge structures involves symbolic interaction rather than manipulation of raw materials. Humans use their symbols to create, re-create, and share meaning and understanding, i.e. to develop new concepts. The use of symbols to create a shared knowledge structure is a primary focus of collaborative learning-work .

During the recent years mass collaboration has shown its effectiveness in many ways and is gaining popularity in many fields of business and science. The most recognized example is probably Wikipedia, which builds on complete openness and world-wide coverage, but the ideas of mass collaboration and wiki-type applications are also becoming more and more commonplace within smaller and possibly more closed communities, e.g. individual companies and research institutes. The principles of mass collaboration can be applied successfully for many different kinds of purposes, carrying out risk assessments is one.

Openness and collaboration

Before moving on to consider the implications of mass collaboration in risk assessment, it is useful to discuss another concept, openness, which is very important to understand when thinking about mass collaboration. In principle the idea of collaboration builds on complete openness, but there might be practical reasons to limit openness e.g. in order to ensure the efficiency of the work process. It is also worth noticing that the openness here primarily means openness to directly contribute to the target of work, the product, not to the work process, which may be considered as an indirect way contribution to the product.

At least the following dimensions of openness can be identified:

• Openness of participation
• Openness of access
• Openness of influence
• Openness of temporal presence

Openness of participation refers to who, and on what basis, are invited or allowed to contribute to the work. Openness of access refers to what parts of the work are available to contribute to. Openness of influence refers to what extent may a particular contribution have influence on the target of work. Openness of temporal presence refers to the when is it possible to give ones contribution. The overall openness is a combination of all these dimensions.

The methods used for managing mass collaboration should ideally be flexible enough to allow the full range from complete closure to complete openness in all the dimensions of openness in order to adapt the work process to match all possible needs. The situations naturally vary case by case and the right form of working is ultimately defined based on the understanding about the use purpose of the product.

Mass collaboration in risk assessments

The reasons behind applying mass collaboration in risk assessment are basically very practical: to improve the effectiveness of the output of an assessment and to improve the efficiency of the assessment process. Collection and synthesis of the knowledge and views of a diverse group of people tends to lead to better outputs than just relying on the knowledge and views of a single or few individuals. Also, inclusion of diverse groups to contribute to the work tends to increase the acceptability of the outputs and can help to improve the usability of the outputs. Even the efficiency of the work process can be enhanced by mass collaboration, although the effect of unsuccessful or badly managed collaboration can also turn out counterproductive in this sense.

A risk assessment can be considered as a good example of work which aims are clearly on creating shared understanding and where mass collaboration thus has great potential to be useful. In a simplified characterisation, a risk assessment should succeed in creating shared understanding between:

• The group of scientific experts on the issue
• The scientists and the decision-makers
• The scientists and the stakeholders (including public at large)
• The decision-makers and the stakeholders

The categorisation above is somewhat artificial, because in principle anyone belonging to any of the abovementioned categories could be a contributor to a risk assessment. Anyhow, in practice it is useful to recognize the different roles that different potential contributors may have in the overall societal decision making process and thus represent a particular interest and view to the risk assessment. The categorisations above are also inherently inter-related and have influence on one another. The last bullet, creating shared understanding between the decision-makers and the stakeholders can only be indirectly influenced by the risk assessment, the other can be addressed directly in the risk assessment process.

Applying the principle of mass collaboration in risk assessment means taking the output of the assessment work, the description of a piece of reality, as the central object of scrutiny. The description is the thing that is being worked on and which serves as the central point or a hub of communication between the participants. In principle all participants are seen as contributors to the product and the product is considered as an independent object. In other words it could be said that all contributors are stakeholders in relation to the assessment product. This also implies that no one, in principle, has any more ownership to the product or a part of the product than anyone else, the product becomes common property of all contributors. Furthermore, if the participation is not limited, everyone becomes a potential contributor and the assessment product becomes more or less common property of the society as a whole.

The output of an assessment is thus an explication of the shared understanding of those who have contributed to the assessment. In a risk assessment the product is a compilation of information that attempts to describe a certain piece of reality as representation of the collective knowledge of the group of contributors about the assessed issue. The description develops iteratively through the contributions of the participants. The contributions are explicated messages that change the structure of the description and trigger other contributions by other participants. Ideally, the description is ready, when there are no more contributions and the quality of the description does not improve anymore. In practice, the assessment work can be declared done when no more big improvements take place and the quality of the description is perceived as sufficient. The assessment product is then ready to be used.

Facilitating mass collaboration

To facilitate such synthesis of diverse knowledge and plurality of views, carrying out risk assessments needs some kind of a collaborative workspace which functions as the platform for mass collaboration. A collaborative workspace serves the purpose of providing e.g. the following functionalities:

• Facilitating communication between participants
• Facilitating documentation and representation
• Dealing with disputes
• Managing openness

In fact the collaborative workspace is the location of storing, manipulating and representing the target of work, the description of reality. It enables the participants to send their messages by making their contributions to the description and other participants to receive these messages. Enabling this communication through the target of work is the primary function that the assessment workspace needs to provide. In many cases, managing openness can also turn out crucial in practice. Providing tools to manipulate external data within the workspace in order to help the participants to create and support ones contributions may be convenient and efficient, but in principle secondary, for the assessment workspace.

References