Crowdsourcing/Further reading

Although aimed at biomedical projects, the rules here are abstract enough to be broadly applicable:

Masum, H., Rao, A., Good, B.M., Todd, M.H., Edwards, A.M., et al. (2013) ‘Ten Simple Rules for Cultivating Open Science and Collaborative R&D’. PLoS Computational Biology, 9(9). DOI 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003244 (Accessed 17 February 2014).

This article is aimed at experts who want to improve Wikipedia, but many of the points apply to lay contributors and to working with other collaborative communities:

Logan D.W., Sandal M., Gardner P.P., Manske M., Bateman A. (2010) “Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia” PLoS Computational Biology. DOI 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000941 (Accessed 17 February 2014).

There are several books about how to contribute to Wikipedia as an individual user. This one is more about the cultural factors that contribute to Wikipedia’s success:

Joseph, M. Reagle, Jr. (2010) Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia MIT Press.

In this popular book, Clay Shirky looks at crowdsourcing in more depth:

Shirky, C. (2011) Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. London: Penguin.

For specific ideas on how academic and cultural projects can work with Wikimedia projects, see the collaboration flowchart created as part of the Jisc/Wikimedia UK partnership.