Economics/Social sciences in the German Wikipedia

Objective of the project and research questions

The project aims to analyse the distribution of contents and the condition of articles in the German Wikipedia, using economics/social sciences as an exemplar. The project was begun in mid-2013 and is expected to run until the end of 2014.

The research questions are divided into two modules.The first module evaluates the pages relevant to social sciences in the German Wikipedia: what is the level of interconnectedness between the articles and the knowledge, and how dynamic is the rate of development in this section of Wikipedia? How many articles are there and what is their scope? Which pages evolve most and how do they evolve in the course of time?

The second module examines the usage behaviour of scientists. It analyses the importance of Wikipedia for a particular Leibniz institution and its scientists: how do they use Wikipedia? Do they have a strategy for Wikipedia? Do they observe the response to their activities in Wikipedia? What are the arguments against using or contributing to Wikipedia? These and other questions will be asked directly of the scientists, enabled by permission to introduce questions into surveys on the usage of social media carried out by partner projects of the Leibniz institutions.

Project Partners

• Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW)
• Modul 1
  • Knowledge Media Research Center (KMRC)
  • Technical University Darmstadt/ Interdisciplinary Research Initiative for Knowledge Discovery on the Web & University and State Library
  • Wikimedia Deutschland
• Modul 2
  • ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW)
  • Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) in the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)
    

Contact

• Professor Irene Bertschek (ZEW)
• Michael Kummer (ZEW)
• Dr Marianne Saam (ZEW)