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Article
Publication date: 13 May 2024

Marcin Roszkowski

The paper addresses the issue of change in Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of the socio-epistemic processes that take place inside the infrastructure. The subject of the…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper addresses the issue of change in Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of the socio-epistemic processes that take place inside the infrastructure. The subject of the study was the process of extending the Wikidata ontology with a new property as an example of the interplay between the social and technical components of the Wikidata infrastructure.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, an interpretative approach to the evolution of the Wikidata ontology was used. The interpretation framework was a process-centric approach to changes in the Wikidata ontology. The extension of the Wikidata ontology with a new property was considered a socio-epistemic process where multiple agents interact for epistemic purposes. The decomposition of this process into three stages (initiation, knowledge work and closure) allowed us to reveal the role of the institutional structure of Wikidata in the evolution of its ontology.

Findings

This study has shown that the modification of the Wikidata ontology is an institutionalized process where community-accepted regulations and practices must be applied. These regulations come from the institutional structure of the Wikidata community, which sets the normative patterns for both the process and social roles and responsibilities of the involved agents.

Originality/value

The results of this study enhance our understanding of the evolution of the collaboratively developed Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of socio-epistemic processes, division of labor and normative patterns.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 April 2021

Marcin Roszkowski and Bartłomiej Włodarczyk

The paper aims to present the development of conceptualization of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) based on associations with other articles on English edition of Wikipedia…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to present the development of conceptualization of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) based on associations with other articles on English edition of Wikipedia. The main goal of the paper is to study the social organization of knowledge about COVID-19 within the Wikipedia community of practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodological approach taken in this study was based on the application of Moscovici's theory of social representations to Wikipedia's knowledge organization system (KOS). Internal links in the Wikipedia article about COVID-19 were considered anchors in its social representations. Each link in the introductory part of the article was considered an indicator of the semantic relationship between COVID-19 and other concepts from Wikipedia's knowledge base. The subject of this study was links extracted from all revisions of the COVID-19 article between February and September 2020. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed on these conceptual structures using both synchronic and diachronic approaches.

Findings

It was found that the evolution of anchors in the Wikipedia article on COVID-19 was in line with the mechanism of symbolic coping related to infectious disease. It went through stages of divergence, convergence and normalization. It shows that this mechanism governs the social organization of knowledge related to COVID-19 on Wikipedia.

Originality/value

No studies have been devoted to the image of COVID-19 as presented by the evolution of links in Wikipedia and its implications for knowledge organization (KO).

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 78 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

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