Peer production

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Peer production (also known as

self-organizing
communities of individuals. In such communities, the labor of many people is coordinated towards a shared outcome.

Overview

Peer production is a process taking advantage of new

non-profit focus.[4]
: 43 

Peer production occurs in a socio-technical system which allows thousands of individuals to effectively cooperate to create a non-exclusive given outcome.[6] Implanting the principle of open collaboration, participants of peer production projects can join and leave at will.[4]: 48  These collective efforts are informal and non-unionized. Peer production is a collaborative effort with no limit to the amount of discussion or changes that can be made to the product. However, as in the case of Wikipedia, a large amount, in fact the majority, of this collaborative effort is maintained by very few devoted and active individuals.[7]

From the organizational perspective, peer production is characterized by its minimal formal hierarchies, governance and leadership; in fact some even have a strong anti-hierarchical and leaderless ethos.[4]: 46 

Applications

Peer production is also expanding beyond knowledge production, in the realm of manufacturing.

open source appropriate technology like the use of biomaterials.[11] Sensorica
is a network-type organization created in early 2011 to develop sustainable models of material peer production.

Peer production has also been utilized in producing collaborative

Peer to Peer University has applied peer production principles to online open learning communities and peer learning
.

Criticism

Several critics have challenged the prevailing optimism with which peer production is viewed.

Daniel Kreiss, Megan Finn, and Fred Turner criticize the consensus perspective on peer production as utopian. Asserting that this new mode of production challenges the traditional form of bureaucracy, they reference Max Weber’s analysis of modern bureaucracy and urge that this analysis be applied to peer production. They argue that bureaucracy is better equipped to handle social problems than peer production, which they consider unsustainable. As bureaucracy promotes a rationally organized, rule-oriented functioning of society, Kreiss, Finn, and Turner claim that peer production undermines this aspect due to its tendency to encourage individual behavior based on private morality. This tendency, they argue, degrades autonomy by “collapsing public and private boundaries,” allowing people's professional lives to extend into their private domains.[15]

Other critics claim that the participatory nature of peer production is apt to generate misinformation and products of inferior quality. In his book The Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen assesses peer-produced content on the Internet and asserts that it exists as a “smokescreen” which emptily promises more truth and deeper knowledge, but actually leading to the disappearance of truth. According to Keen, the Internet advocates peer production to a questionable degree by permitting anyone to post information freely. This form of peer production, he cautions, leaves room for people to plagiarize ideas and distort original thoughts, which he says ultimately creates an uncertainty in the validity of information.[16]

Another critic, Jaron Lanier, cites Wikipedia as an example of how dependence on mass collaboration may result in unreliable or biased information. He warns that websites like Wikipedia promote the notion of the “collective” as all knowing, and that this concentrated influence stands in direct contrast to representative democracy.[17]

In addition to these adversarial views, some critics assert that peer production does not perform as well in some contexts as it does in others.

encyclopedias more proficiently than creative works.[18] Despite the valuable potential of peer production, several critics continue to doubt extensive collaboration and its ability to yield high quality outputs.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ Benkler, Yochai (April 2003). "Freedom in the Commons: Towards a Political Economy of Information". Duke Law Journal. 52 (6): 1245. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  2. ^ Kostakis, V. 2019. How to Reap the Benefits of the “Digital Revolution”? Modularity and the Commons. Halduskultuur: The Estonian Journal of Administrative Culture and Digital Governance, Vol 20(1):4–19.
  3. ^
    ISSN 1396-0466
    . Retrieved 2014-09-26.
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-262-35645-9
    .
  5. ^ Benkler, Y., Shaw, A., & Hill, B. M. (2015). Peer production: A form of collective intelligence (pp. 175-204). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  6. Nissenbaum Helen
    , "Commons based Peer Production and Virtue"
  7. S2CID 7948476
    .
  8. S2CID 43975556
    .
  9. doi:10.12924/cis2014.02010018
    .
  10. ^ D.J. Pangburn (Nov 7, 2014). "How 3D Printers Are Boosting Off-The-Grid, Underdeveloped Communities". MotherBoard.
  11. doi:10.7275/7047367
    .
  12. ^ "About.""Writing Commons". CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Retrieved 2013-02-11.
  13. ^ Anders, Abram (November 9, 2012). "Experimenting with MOOCs: Network-based Communities of Practice.". Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference. Mankato, MN. Archived from the original on 2013-11-07. Retrieved 2013-02-11.
  14. ^ "About.""Cultivating Change Community". CC BY-NC 3.0. Archived from the original on 2013-06-30. Retrieved 2013-02-11.
  15. ^ Kreiss, Daniel; Finn, Megan; Turner, Fred. "The limits of peer production". Sage Journals. Sage. pp. 243–259. Retrieved 2014-05-24.
  16. ^ Keen, Andrew (2007). The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture (3rd ed.). Crown Business.
  17. ^ Lanier, Jaron (2010). You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (1st ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  18. ^ a b c Benkler, Yochai; Shaw, Aaron; Mako Hill, Benjamin. "Peer Production: A Modality of Collective Intelligence" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-05-24.

External links

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