AUTHOR
Kiyoshi Murata and Yohko Orito

ABSTRACT

It is alleged that we are now living in “risk society” as a consequence of modernisation or industrial civilisation (Beck, 1992) where “manufactured risk” should be recognised as social concern even though such kind of risk cannot easily be perceived (Giddens, 1999). In this circumstance, a society is intended to be organised in response to risk. In Japan, information and communication technology (ICT) is expected to serve as a key component of policies to deal with risk and to construct a secure and safe society. In fact, policy proposals made by IT Strategic Headquarters emphasise the necessity of establishing the world’s leading secure and safe society using ICT (IT Strategic Headquarters, 2008). They seem to be trying to create complete security and safety in Japan. Private companies also take a proactive stance in the policies. However, are safety and security the supreme values for human beings? In fact, this trial can ironically bring about manufactured risk, but nonetheless they have made little mention of it.

This study attempts to examine what risk is going to be caused by the construction of a secure and safe society using ICT in Japan and why, taking Japanese socio-cultural circumstances surrounding technology and governmental policies into account. Through the examination, the authors would like to consider what Japanese people are going to throw away in return for personal security and safety attained by the government-led deployment of ICT-based information systems. Risk we focus on in this study is invasion of privacy and social sorting inherent in the surveillance society (Lyon, 2003), which is being constructed with multipurpose ICT, and consequent suppression of intellectual freedom including freedom of speech and action.

Most Japanese believed that a peaceful and safe society had been constructed in Japan since the end of World War II in step with Japan’s successful economic growth till the early 1990s.

However, the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground system in 1995 and the child murder case in Kobe in 1997, which was called the “sakakibara” case, sowed the seeds of terror or anxiety in people’s minds that the myth of the safe Japanese society had already collapsed.

Repeatedly reported heinous crimes have given Japanese people a realisation of the serious deterioration in the security situation. Indeed, the crime statistics compiled by the National Police Agency show the increasing tendency of the number of violent crime from 2000 to the present and the decreasing tendency of arrest rate from 1996 to 2004 (National Police Agency, 2009). An opinion poll on public security conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2006 shows that 84.3 % of the three thousand respondents feel that Japan’s public security has become worse in these ten years (Cabinet Office, 2007). However, such recognition is not necessarily correct; we can conclude that public security of Japan has not been worse and Japan is one of the safest countries in the world when we peruse statistics regarding crimes in Japan.

In addition to the Japanese people’s feeling of deterioration of public order, the 9.11 terrorist attacks in 2001 gave a significant impact on policies for securing public safety in Japan. Most of litter bins at train and underground stations were removed not to be set time bombs in the bins by terrorists. Latent threat of terrorism has been repeatedly emphasised in government statements as well as in media reports which seem to attempt to promote people’s sense of fear.

Consequently, security camera systems have been installed at train and underground stations, at lifts and entrances of buildings and on streets of city areas. A security camera is called bohan kamera in Japanese which means a camera to prevent occurring crimes, even though any clear evidence of such an effect upon crimes has not been presented. According to the interview with inspectors of the National Police Agency conducted by the authors in 2008, the crime-prevention scheme using high-tech security camera systems have been steadily improved. For example, the security camera system installed in Shinjuku Kabukicho in Tokyo provides police officers with a function of real-time tracking of a crime suspect using video images when an incident happens. In the east exit area of Kawasaki rail station, the high-end security camera which equips the function of detecting abnormal or irregular behaviour using pattern recognition technology will be set up. Installation of these camera systems is hailed by the local residents because they eager security and safety in their cities, and any system, as the inspectors emphasised, equips a privacy-protection function.

The “all in one” IC cards are another technology which enable real-time tracking of individuals’ behaviour and, thus, can contribute to establish security and safety in the public transport. For example, Suica, a prepaid rail pass card with a built-in smart IC chip developed by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) which equips an electronic money function, is used by more than six million people. To each Suica a unique ID number is assigned and in the IC chip variety of individual passenger’s data including information concerning rail service usage and shopping paid by Suica are stored. JR East has already developed the real-time passenger tracking system which, they say, can be used to improve levels of customer service. It goes without saying that this system can function as a crime detection system in conjunction with the security camera systems installed at the rail stations.

Multifunctional, global positioning system (GPS) locator-equipped mobiles, which are popular among Japanese people, can also be used for real-time tracking of individual users’ behaviour. Many motorcars have already been equipped with a car navigation system with GPS, an electronic toll collection (ETC) system and a vehicle video system. In conjunction with the N system (an automatic number plate reader system), these equipments are able to be utilised for real-time tracking of motorcars.

Ordinary Japanese seem rather to hail installation of these traceability systems than to despise due to convenience as well as security and safety they can provide. Behind this attitude Japanese people’s trust in the governments exists. However, this may let them miss manufactured risk the systems can bring about.

REFERENCES

Beck, U. (1992), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage Publications.

Cabinet Office (2007), An Opinion Poll on Public Security, available online at http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h18/h18-chian/index.html (in Japanese; accessed on 24/07/09).

Giddens, A. (1999), Runaway World: How Globalisation Is Reshaping Our Lives, London: Profile Books.

IT Strategic Headquarters (2008), Priority Policy Programme 2008, available online at http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/policy/it/Program2008.pdf.

Lyon, D. (2003), Surveillance as social sorting: computer codes and mobile bodies, in Lyon, D. (Ed.), Surveillance and Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination, New York: Routledge, pp. 13-30.

National Police Agency (2009), Crime Settings in 2008, available online at http://www.npa.go.jp/toukei/seianki7/h20hanzaizyousei.pdf (in Japanese; accessed on 24/07/09).

AUTHOR
Ananda Mitra

ABSTRACT

Technological advances specifically 1) in the availability of powerful digital machines and 2) the wide-spread penetration of high-speed data connections have allowed for the popularity of numerous social networking sites (SNS) that are leading to significant changes in the way in which people interact with each other and produce their e-identities in the virtual realm. Numerous SNS came (and disappeared) in the latter 1990s and the early 2000s, each providing different kinds of functionality and attracting different levels of following among users. For instance, MySpace was an open site that was popular among a large cross-section of users since it provided unrestricted access to the SNS. On the other hand, the early version of Facebook was restricted to young people in academic institutions and most of the users of Facebook had a priori connections with each other and the SNS was an extension of the real life connection. Other SNS were restricted to specific parts of the World as in the case of Bebo which had a large following in Europe but not in the rest of the World, and Orkut that had an initial following in Brazil, and later in India. The development of SNS was relatively uneven in the early days, but by 2009, the participation in SNS has become commonplace and a large number of people Worldwide have experienced digitally mediated social networking. For example, there was a181% growth of people in the 25 to 34 age range and a 98% growth for people over 35 years old in Facebook membership once it became available to everyone. These numbers demonstrate the growth in a single social networking Web site, but do not shed light on another simultaneous phenomenon where the number of social networking sites is expanding as well. Although there is a dearth of precise counts of the number of social networking Web sites, it is estimated that there are several hundred such Web sites and more are constantly added (Sonnie, 2007). It is inevitable that with such growth, many individuals would be members of multiple social networking groups.

This essay focuses on the way in which individuals produce multiple identities through a discursive process of building a digital presence in SNS. Scholars such as Stuart Hall have suggested that identity is produced via specific narrative and discursive processes where the “identity narratives” become central to the way in which a person can create sense of the self. It is thus possible to create focused identity narratives that offer a specific component of a person’s identity through a specific SNS, reserving other components for other Web sites. As a result the process of identity production becomes problematic when multiple virtual faces are constructed by the same individual operating within the “public” sphere of different social networking Web sites. This offers the opportunity for the production of numerous identity narratives where Goffman’s notion of face becomes elaborated into several layers as the virtual presence distributed across many different SNS.

The fact that millions of people have subscribed to multiple SNS offers the opportunity to examine the ways in which the digital system is altering the way in which identity is produced, maintained and negotiated on and through the digital systems. Understanding this becomes especially important as more people, with fewer former connections, are populating the networks. Simultaneously, a single individual is a member of multiple networks which are all visible to anyone interested in learning about a person. This transparency offers a much more elaborate opportunity of learning about the identity of a person. And those who are curious about a person and those who are creating their identities are both aware of this opportunity and can manipulate the narratives appropriately to manage the composite narrative produced across multiple digital social networks.

The key question thus is: What are the strategies used by people to create multiple narratives across different SNS Web sites? The question is approached using methods of textual analysis as suggested by critical scholars like John Fiske where selected discourses of individuals is analyzed to see specific representational strategies used by the individuals to create multiple identity narratives.

The preliminary findings show that people who have multiple identities deliberately produce specific narrative bits or “narbs” that are tailored for the specific SNS. Most of the digital social networking systems also allow the members to constantly change the narbs. These changes could be in the form of updating personal information, adding new information, or reporting on the status of a person at any time. The outcome of the process of creating dynamic narbs is the slippage from a stable identity narrative. It is difficult to find the seminal narrative about another person if the person is deliberately changing the narbs that become the building block of the narrative. These dynamic narbs all eventually become virtual references to a single real person. Yet the identity narratives of an individual created by different sets of narbs selected from different places in cyberspace could be remarkably different from each other, further complicating the way in which identities are produced and maintained by digital social network systems. The paper discusses some of the possible implications of the process of creating multiple shifting narbs.

AUTHOR
Maslin Masrom, Zuraini Ismail, Ramlah Hussein and Norshidah Mohamed

ABSTRACT

Theoretical Foundation and Conceptualization

Nowadays, in the society, ethical issues are important in the information technology (IT) area, and facing with ethical issues is inevitable. Since humankind live together, it is not possible to live without rules and regulation as what a person must do and what he or she may not do (Boyle, 2002). In general, ethics helps us to live peacefully in the society. While use of information and computer technology (ICT) is being used in all areas of business, industry and education sectors, and general public, the chance for unethical use or abuse of this technology is also increased. Examples of unethical use are infraction of privacy, unauthorized access, creation of virus and worms, security breaches, and software piracy.

In recent era, firms spend a big amount of budget on preventive measures, for example computer-related security (i.e. security tools and policies). Since this is a human problem, ethical behavior by individuals should be warned to computer-related abuse (Henry & Pierce, 1994). Ethical decision making is a process which can be affected by individual’s environment (such as societal environment, belief system, personal environment, personal values, professional environment, legal environment, and business environment). Studies of ethical decision making in an IT context generally search in two directions (Haines & Leonard, 2007). First, the studies focus on examining demographic and personality styles of individuals, and second focuses on the process of ethical decision-making to find beliefs and attitudes that lead to unethical behavior.

The Internet has proliferated into everywhere in the world, and become an essential tool of the people lives. Shaw (2003) explains the relationship between ethics and privacy through the advancement of ICT and internet technologies in the world as following:

“Despite this pervasiveness, there is a downside to using the web. The web has transformed computer mediated communication into computer mediated behavior. Each action generates messages that can be captured, stored, used, and shared by the organizations and individuals who manage web servers. As a result the web allows for behavior to be tracked both broadly and precisely, making it possible to compile detailed, intimate profiles of individuals. These profiles can in turn be used in any number of ways that affect the lives of their subjects, so the electronic footprints we leave as we use the web have the potential to threaten individual privacy at an unprecedented level.”

Recently, privacy is one of the most important component of information security field, and also has become an important ethical issue for computer ethics. In this era, file sharing websites became very common, and there are many unethical issues occurred related to infraction of privacy right. Haines and Leonard (2007) state that ethical behavioral intentions and privacy should be investigated in relation to changes in IT. Therefore, in order to comprehend why privacy is important for ethical issues, previous studies on privacy are examined.

In this study, the related research theories and models for decision making and privacy are presented and discussed. Among the related research theories and models cover in this study:

• Henry and Pierce’s Model (Henry & Pierce, 1994)
• Loch and Conger’s Model (Loch & Conger, 1996)
• Goles, White, Beebe, Dorantes and Hewitt’s Model (Goles et al., 2006)
• Haines and Leonard’s Model (Haines & Leonard, 2007)

Also, moral development encompasses of six components of moral intensity, general moral imperative, moral reasoning and six-stage process of ethical decision making are described in this paper.

This paper also propose the conceptual framework for determining the relationship between ethical decision making and privacy. The conceptual framework is depicted in Fig.1.

Concepts definitions are given in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Definition of Concepts

An important contribution of this paper is the integration of theories and models of ethical decision making and privacy.
Research Approach, Research Methodology and Nature of Data

This study is in relation to qualitative research approach. The data, for this kind of study, consists of former scientific literature. As for the former scientific literature, we look through academic writings, such as refereed articles and books. Other publicly reachable materials are also considered, such as bulletins, web pages, newspaper and magazines. These approaches will further develop other future investigations.

REFERENCES

Boyle, E.J. (2002). An Ethical Decision Making Process for Computing Professionals, Ethics and Information Technology, 4, pp. 267-277.

Goles, T., White, G.B., Beebe, N., Dorantes, C.A., & Hewitt, B. (2006). Moral Intensity and Ethical Decision-Making: A Contextual Extension, The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 37, pp. 2-3.

Haines, R. & Leonard, L.N.K. (2007). Individual Characteristics and Ethical Decision-Making in an IT Context, Industrial Management and Data, 107 (1), pp. 5-20.

Henry, J. W. & Pierce, M.A. (1994). Computer Ethics: A Model of Influences on the Individual’s Ethical Decision Making, Computer Personnel, October, pp. 21-27.

Loch, K.D. & Conger, S. (1996). Evaluating Ethical Decision Making and Computer Use, Communications of the ACM, 39 (7), July, pp. 74-83.

Shaw, T.R. (2003). The Moral Intensity of Privacy: An Empirical Study of Webmaster’s Attitudes, Journal of Business Ethics, 46, pp. 301-318.

AUTHOR
Stephen Lilley, Ph.D., Andra Gumbus, Ed.D. and Frances S. Grodzinsky, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

We who study and teach computer ethics are familiar with what matters to experts regarding software property rights and privacy rights in cyberspace. For example, we know that Richard Stallman cares most about maximum dissemination of software for social benefit. He favors free software over protected software because the former is unencumbered (Stallman, 1992). We also know that experts representing the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) care most about profit from intellectual property and, accordingly, favor strong copyright provisions and enforcement. Stallman and the RIAA stake diametric absolutist positions: Software should be free or protected regardless of the author, the application utility, the economic system, the user intent, etc. For them, specific circumstances do not matter. Helen Nissenbaum (2001 & 2004) has recommended sensitivity to contingent elements both in terms of property and privacy. For her, the details of the case or social context do matter. Her contexts are similar to the “situations” found in James Moor’s (2004) privacy theory.

In her article, “Privacy As Contextual Integrity,” Nissenbaum (2004) explicitly promotes a context-relative approach. She notes that social contexts are governed by norms of appropriateness and norms of distribution in regard to the flow of information. For example, it is appropriate for a close friend or physician (in a healthcare context) to probe about one’s health and emotional state but if a salesperson did this within the context of shopping one would treat it as a violation of privacy. She proposes that “information gathering and dissemination be appropriate to that context and obey the governing norms of distribution within it.” (101)

Research Question

Given that ethical issues concerning privacy and property affect all users, the authors decided to conduct an exploratory study on the non-expert’s attitude about property and privacy rights. Are they absolutists or context-relativists? Are there contextual norms or conditions that matter to them? We pay attention to the experts because they help shape the social debate from “above” by means of conceptualization, rhetorical argumentation, and policy recommendation. Nevertheless, non-experts are not without influence–they shape the social debate by their decisions and actions at the ground level through their roles as students, consumers, and employees (see Buchanan (2004) and Gotterbarn (1995).

Research Study

Our investigation constitutes one part of an international study of college students conducted in the 2008-2009 academic year, of which we were co-sponsors. Although this was a multi-site study (USA, UK), we limit our report to the data collected from our site in the United States. Students were asked to respond using a Likert scale (i.e., strongly disagree to strongly agree) to approximately 20 computer ethics scenarios based on property and privacy issues. In some instances two scenarios were the same except for one twist, for example, the acceptability of making unauthorized copies of commercial software for private use and the acceptability of making unauthorized copies of commercial software for university work. We analyzed responses to this and other pairs to determine whether or not subjects care about context variables such as private use/university work and also for-profit/non-profit making (using university computing facilities), permission/no permission (using other people’s passwords), and consent & knowledge/without consent & knowledge (under surveillance). Context sensitivity was operationalized as selecting different values for a pair (e.g., agree to private use and disagree to university work).

Summary of Findings

Forty-six percent of a total of 251 respondents demonstrated context sensitivity to the private use/university work difference and 53% to for-profit/non-profit making. Sixty-five percent were sensitive to permission/no permission and 85% to consent & knowledge/without consent & knowledge. This finding supports Nissenbaum’s claims for the significance of norms of appropriateness and distribution. On average, women and students under the age of 25 were more context sensitive than men and older students.

REFERENCES

Buchanan, E. (2004) “Ethical Considerations for the Information Professions”, In R.A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 523-534.

Gotterbarn, D. (1995) “Computer Ethics: Responsibility Regained” In D. Johnson and H.Nissenbaum, eds. Computing, Ethics and Social Values. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 18-24

Moor, J. H. (2004) “Towards a Theory of Privacy for the Information Age.” In R.A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2004, 407-417.

Nissenbaum, Helen (2001) “Should I copy My Neighbor’s Software?” In D.M. Hester and P. Ford, eds., Computers and Ethics in the Cyberage. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 297-307.

Nissenbaum, Helen (2004) “Privacy As Contextual Integrity.” Washington Law Review, Vol. 79 (1), pp. 101-139.

Stallman, Richard (1992) “Why Software Should Be Free.” http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html. Accessed July 19, 2006.

Warren, Samuel and Louis Brandeis (1890) “The Right to Privacy.” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 14 (5), pp. 193-220.

AUTHOR
Mike Leigh

ABSTRACT

The use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) to enhance the student higher education experience has continued to grow during the last decade. There has also been a corresponding growth in publications and conferences pertaining to their usage. The main focus of this work has been towards technological and pedagogical concerns with ethical issues being addressed to a much smaller extent. However, a range of ethical aspects, significant to VLEs, have been identified and discussed [McRobb and Stahl, 2007; Brey, 2004; Pearson and Koppi, 2006]. Research specifically addressing students’ attitudes towards the use of VLEs exists but is less common [Stahl, 2002].

This paper, firstly, identifies a range of ethical issues that are of relevance to students’ day-to-day usage of VLEs in their studies. Secondly, it discusses the results of an investigation into the levels of awareness and the attitudes of students to the ethical dimensions of VLE usage. This is distinct from much of the previous work that has been undertaken which address the ethical issues of VLEs from an institutional perspective, for example, Jefferies et al, (2007); Jones and Conole (2006), or those that include VLE usage as part of a broader study [Grodzinsky, et al, 2008; Prior, 2004; and Leigh and Prior, 2008].

A literature survey was undertaken which, together with the questionnaire results of a previous investigation into VLE usage [Leigh, 2006], was used to ascertain a range of ethical concerns pertaining to Higher Education, in general, and the use of VLEs in particular. Focus groups [Bryman, 2008] were employed in order to explore the students’ awareness of the ethical issues identified and their attitude towards them. Participants of these groups were chosen whose profile represented a cross-section of the divergent backgrounds of the university students including gender, age, ethnicity and particular learning requirements. This included the perspective of an unsighted student.

The ethical concerns explored in the focus groups included access to the VLE and to the learning activities within them; students’ expectations of behaviour when participating in such activities; the impact of VLEs on student learning styles; and privacy issues associated with their use of the VLE.

This paper addresses the findings from the focus group discussions which highlighted some interesting ethical gaps in the students’ awareness of issues pertaining to their VLE usage. For example, with regards to access to VLE materials and learning exercises the students’ awareness and attitude was largely governed by their own personal experience. If they had not faced access problems they were generally “not bothered” by potential inequality of access. Not surprisingly the converse of this was the case with the unsighted student. Similar attitudes and levels of awareness were seen around the issues of student behaviour when undertaking group learning activities and also around issues of privacy. However, in these cases students tended to have stronger opinions when they were affected by an issue.

It is clear from this study that there is an apparent ethical gap within the mindset of these students when using the VLE for their studies. It is perceptible that VLEs have been adopted to help enhance the student experience without sufficient attention being paid to ensuring that students are equipped to utilise such facilities in an ethical way. It would seem that although a subset of ethical issues are dealt with proactively by institutions, many ethical dilemmas are not addressed until something happens. This conclusion has been seen in other aspects of institutional VLE usage such as with online monitoring of staff and student activities [Leigh and Prior, 2008]. The implications of this shortfall are explored in this paper.

REFERENCES

Brey, P. (2004) Ethical issues for the Virtual University, Proceedings of the seventh international ETHICOMP conference, Syros, Greece, 14-16 April 2004

Bryman, A. 2008. Social Research Methods. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.

Grodzinsky, F. S. Lilley, S. & Gumbus, A. 2008. Ethical implication of internet monitoring: a comparative study. Proceedings of the tenth international ETHICOMP conference, Mantua, Italy, September 2008

Jeffries, P, Stahl, B. C. & McRobb, S (2007): “Exploring the Relationships between Pedagogy, Ethics & Technology: Building a Framework for Strategy Development” In: Technology, Pedagogy and Education (16:1), 111 – 126

Jones, C. and Conole, G. (2006) Who will own the new VLE?: sharing practice, problems and alternative solutions, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ascilite Conference: Who’s learning? Whose technology?

Leigh, M. (2006) “Pedagogic Underpinning in the use of Virtual Learning Environments” DMU e-Learning Symposium, Leicester 5 May 2006

Leigh, M. and Prior, M. (2008) Multi-layered monitoring in virtual learning environments: filling the policy vacuum, Proceedings of the tenth international ETHICOMP conference, Mantua, Italy, September 2008

McRobb, S & Stahl, B. C. (2007): “Privacy as a Shared Feature of the e-Phenomenon: A Comparison of Privacy Policies in e-Government, e-Commerce and e-Teaching” International Journal of Information Technology and Management, Special Issue on “Making Sense of the E-Phenomenon”, edited by Feng Li, 232 – 249

Pearson, E. and Koppi, T. (2006) A pragmatic and strategic approach to supporting staff in inclusive practices for on-line learning, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ascilite Conference: Who’s learning? Whose technology?

Prior, M. (2004) Surveillance-capable technologies in the workplace: some evidence of the views of the next generation of computer professionals. ETHICOMP 2004, Syros, Greece, 14-16 April 2004.

Stahl, Bernd Carsten [2002] Ethics and e-teaching: the students’ perspective. Communications of the IIMA, vol. 2 [no. 3], 51-62.

AUTHOR
Paul B. de Laat

ABSTRACT

Open source communities are spreading from software to other kinds of informational content. Reference works are a growing domain, with Wikipedia, the web based encyclopaedia, being the most prominent example. The OSS approach is followed closely here: everybody is invited to contribute and wiki software is used that allows collaboration by multiple parties across the Internet. Thus, an amazing feature of such communities is the amount of a priori trust that is put in total strangers emerging from cyberspace.

This particular domain of web based collaboration is an interesting field of research on the matter of trust and trustworthiness, while in practice several widely different approaches towards it have crystallized. For one thing, encyclopaedic efforts (like Citizendium, Scholarpedia and Wikipedia) exhibit remarkable differences between them in this respect. For another, within existing projects fierce discussions take place about the proper ways of handling this matter, particularly within Wikipedia.

Attention will be focussed upon ‘organizational’ means of coping with (lack of) trust: rules and regulations that channel incoming contributions. Such regulations may substitute for assuming trustworthiness on the part of participants; as a result, less trustworthiness is needed (cf. de Laat 2009). An important dimension of such ‘community design’ is the distinction between several roles: permissions granted to perform specific activities upon specific resources within the project. Let me briefly indicate some distinctions in use (‘editorial policies’). In Wikipedia, everybody without exception may directly contribute to entries that already exist (‘anonymous user’); upon registration, one may additionally add new entries (‘registered user’). In a project like Citizendium however (and equally so in Scholarpedia), policies are more restrictive: everyone may contribute (as an ‘author’), but acceptance of edits has to come from appointed ‘editors’ who oversee the development of the article involved and approve the subsequent versions. This variety in editorial policies can be described in terms of high-discretion vs. low-discretion designs (de Laat 2009).

At the same time, editorial policy is under heavy dispute within Wikipedia, both within and between the various language versions. At issue is the rise of ‘vandalism’ towards entries, and the threat this poses to Wikipedia reliability. The solution is sought in reviewing user contributions before incorporating them in the ‘stable version’ of entries. It would involve introducing more roles and layers within the encyclopaedic project, a distinct deviation from the egalitarian approach followed until now. In doing so Wikipedia would move towards a design with lower discretion, and so closer in conception to Citizendium, Scholarpedia and the like. This is not only under discussion: it has already led to a separation of ways. The German Wikipedia has adopted a review system in 2008 (with other language versions from Eastern Europe following in their footsteps), while the English Wikipedia remains vehemently against it.

Just like in OSS these design differences have to do with different conceptions of how an encyclopaedic project should be run efficiently. But at the same time, unlike the case of OSS, there is more to it: different conceptions of the role of experts and expertise also play a role. On the one hand, classical conceptions on this issue would start from a belief in knowledge as web of mutually accepted and verified meanings. In that web, experts perform a prominent role as guarantors of quality. In the set-up of a web based encyclopaedia this conception translates into certified experts as the hub for all decisions about incoming contributions. Experts adopt certain entries or fields as a whole, and steer and guard their proper development. Notice that reputation as an expert is acquired in the real world, and then imported into the virtual web based environment. Such a conception supports a design of lower discretion. Connected to this, screening for one’s credentials as an expert is common procedure for becoming a contributor. This conception, it will be argued, is dominant in Citizendium and Scholarpedia

On the other hand, more ‘egalitarian’ conceptions see knowledge as ‘distributed knowledge’: everybody is – or can be – an expert in his/her own ways. Every contribution is equal – until proven otherwise after lengthy discussions. As long as people of good intentions outnumber those of ill intentions, valid knowledge may be generated (as argued by, e.g., Cass Sunstein). Therefore an egalitarian approach is demanded from the outset. A design with a higher amount of discretion is indicated. Moreover, screening of participants is deemed unnecessary. This conception, it will be argued, is characteristic for the Wikipedia project.

Above it was observed that a ‘third way’ was developing within Wikipedia circles: a middle-discretion kind of design allowing review of contributions. It would seem that underlying these developments are not only arguments about efficiency but also about the proper role of experts. It will be argued that in a furtive fashion some conception of reputation is emerging within Wikipedia, in conjunction with systems for measuring such reputation.

Let us look at the German Wikipedia. In those circles the number of performed ‘edits’ becomes increasingly valuable. This score may translate into extra user rights. At 300 edits or more, one obtains rights to review changes made by other contributors and declare them free of vandalism. At 3000 edits or more, one obtains ‘auto-review’ rights, meaning that one’s own contributions are exempt from review. So in a crude way, by accumulating edits, some sort of reputation is acquired.

In a more sophisticated vein, software has been developed for gauging inside Wikipedia reputations. A content-driven algorithm that keeps track of the rate of change in – fragments of – text has been developed by Luca de Alfaro and co-workers (Adler and Alfaro 2007). Whenever edits performed by some contributor remain unchanged, his reputation will grow; and vice versa, when his edits are undone later, his reputation will diminish. Based on this idea – and with some more nuances added – reputations of Wikipedia contributors can be calculated on a continuous basis. It has been proposed – but not yet implemented – to use this measure for e.g. reviewing systems (only edits from contributors of low reputation needing to be flagged) and for protecting controversial articles (by barring contributors of low reputation only).

This emerging – and highly debatable – conception of expertise is noteworthy for at least 3 reasons. First, it seems to refer exclusively to the virtual world: only what happens inside Wikipedia counts. Secondly, it is ‘content-driven’: reputation is tied to whether one’s contributions remain unchanged or not. Co-Wikipedians ‘vote’, as it were, for one’s contributions by overruling them or not. This is quite different from the usual personal ratings by one’s peers. A third difference follows immediately: one acquires a reputation in general, as ‘honourable’ Wikipedian – not as concerns one (or more) specific fields of investigation. The implications of this new conception of expertise deserve a thorough investigation.

REFERENCES

Adler, B.T. and L. de Alfaro. A Content-Driven Reputation System for the Wikipedia. In WWW 2007, Proceedings of the 16th International World Wide Web Conference, ACM Press, 2007.

De Laat, Paul B. Trusting invisible strangers in open source communities: About the assumption, inference and substitution of trust. Proceedings CEPE 2009, Corfu, pp. 158-180.

Various relevant websites such as:
en.citizendium.org; knol.google.com; www.scholarpedia.org; wikipedia.org (in various languages).