Stigmergic collaboration: a theoretical framework for mass collaboration

This thesis is a trasdisciplinary work providing theoretical frameworks for the process of collaboration generally as well as in internet-based large-scale, mass collaboration contexts - such as Wikipedia.org and open source software etc.Deposited with permission of the author. © 2007 Dr. Mark Alan ElliottThis thesis presents an application-oriented theoretical framework for generalised and specific collaborative contexts with a special focus on Internet-based mass collaboration. The proposed framework is informed by the author’s many years of collaborative arts practice and the design, building and moderation of a number of online collaborative environments across a wide range of contexts and applications. The thesis provides transdisciplinary architecture for describing the underlying mechanisms that have enabled the emergence of mass collaboration and other activities associated with ‘Web 2.0’ by incorporating a collaboratively developed definition and general framework for collaboration and collective activity, as well as theories of swarm intelligence, stigmergy, and distributed cognition. (For complete abstract open document