Community Building – Open Source and Open Content [A5]

Abstract

Successful open source projects tend to build substantial communities of users and developers. These communities are often facilitated by collaborative software perhaps best exemplified by SourceForge. Open content sites such as Wikipedia also generate substantial communities of user/developers. Here the remarkably low barrier to becoming a contributor helps create a related kind of community. This workshop explores key features of community development in the open source and open content world. It considers how these could be put to use by institutional Web sites.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the session participants will:

  • Be aware of key features of community development
  • Have an understanding of some of the differences between open source and open content communities
  • Have reflected upon what learning points are transferable to the institutional Web environment