Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia Badges/research

Research

Have the research be done in three parts, namely answering these main questions:

Question 1: How are badges currently being used on Wikipedia? What are some common practices? Methods:

• Survey overview of common projects
• “Comparative Analysis”?
• Interviews with project organizers

Question 2: Do badges increase editor retention and activity? Methods:

• Collect user editing behavior over time:
• Divide users into the following groups:

Users who participate in the Teahouse with an invite to participate in the badge program (+TH, -BG)

Users who participate in the Teahouse without an invite to participate in badge program (+TH, -BG)

Users who get a Teahouse invite and an invite to participate in the badge program but don't participate in the Teahouse (-TH, +BG)

Users who get a Teahouse invite but no invite for badge program and don't end up participating in the Teahouse (-TH, -BG)

Question 3: What do we know about people that are using badges? Methods:

• Track where users are coming from when they respond to the invitation to participate with in the teahouse with or without badges.
• Survey demographic questions:

• Gender
• Age
• Motivations for editing
• What they do with themselves
• Articles they like to edit the most (projects they participate in)

Question 4: How are badges perceived by the people involved (hosts and guests)? What are people’s reactions? Methods:

• Track badge usage rate and nominations
• Request comments, questions, and suggestions
• Survey questions about how they felt their badge experience went

Question 5: What aspects of badge design affect the success of the system? Methods:

• Track badge usage rate and nominations

Prior research

Background Research

The following is a list of some of the information available on badges and how they relate to reputation systems, games, and motivation. Not an exhaustive list by any means and more research will be added as it becomes known:

Mozilla Open Badges Project

• Open Badge Project, Mozilla Foundation
• Open Badge Wiki, Mozilla Foundation
• Open Badges Google Group

Games and Gamification

• Gamification (and its discontents), Matt Shobe, Chief Design Officer for BigDoor
• Beyond Gamification, Dustin DiTommaso, Experience Design Director of Mad*Pow
• Mindful Technology, Sean Munson
• Game Mechanics Won't Save You, Yevgeniy Brikman

Badges in Reputation Systems, Community, and Identity

Badges are one of several ways for people to display their reputation on or offline (others include leaderboards, ratings or special names). If they are properly awarded for mastering or achieving something they can signal to others information like skill-level, dedication, age (newbie or expert) or even friendliness of a user. When thought of in the context of reputation systems, the value of badges to users lies in their ability to solve the problem of information asymmetry.

• Types of Online Reputation Systems, Yahoo! Developer Network
• Manifesto for a Reputation Society, Massum and Zhang
• A Comparison of Reputation, Certification, Warranties, and Information Disclosure as Remedies for Information Asymmetries: Lessons from the On-line Comic Book Market, Ederignton and Dewally

Badges in Learning and Badges as Certification

• Six Ways to Look at Badging Systems Designed for Learning, Global Kids
• Certificates: Gateway to Gainful Employment and College Degrees, Anthony Carnevale, Stephen Rose, Andrew Hanson

Examples of 'Failed Badge and Extrinsic Award Systems

• We don't need no stinkin' badges: examining the social role of badges in the Huffington Post, Julie Jones, Nathan Altadonna
• The story Consumating's ill-fated point system, Ben Brown

Motivation on Wikimedia Projects

• This is my voice”: the motivations of highly active Wikipedians

See also

• User:Ocaasi/Badges