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On Nov 18, 2009, at 10:28, Morten Friis wrote:

> *****  To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org  *****
>
> Dear SOCNET,
>
> I'm interested in NGOs and especially internet-based volunteer- 
> organizations (e.g. Wikipedia and open source movements). But I have  
> had a hard time finding research on the social network in these  
> kinds of organizations.
>
> Therefore I'm asking, if anyone has any knowledge of research about  
> social networks in:
>
> -          traditional NGOs with volunteers

I'll leave this to others; I'm also interested in the question.

> -          Or, internet-based volunteer-organizations

There is really quite a lot of work here (most likely relating to the  
relative ease of access to datasets).  We have a paper (currently  
under review) which reviews much of this work (in Information Systems,  
at least) high-lighting significant validity concerns, contact me  
directly and I can share it.

Self promotion first (if you'll allow me :) you'll find a number of  
relevant papers coming from the FLOSS project at Syracuse (see list of  
refs at bottom of email):

http://floss.syr.edu/publications/

Then there is the work at CMU, including this piece:
Wagstrom, P. A., Herbsleb, J. D., and Carley, K. M. (2005). A social  
network approach to free/open source software simulation. In  
Proceedings, First International Conference on Open Source Systems  
(IFIP 2.13), Genoa, Italy.

http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/publications/papers.php

There is a trove of papers using large Sourceforge datasets from Greg  
Madey's open source group at Notre Dame:

http://www.nd.edu/~oss/Papers/papers.html

There is also the work of Nicholas Duchenaut, including his  
dissertation:

http://www2.parc.com/csl/members/nicolas/publications.html

Two papers which use SNA techniques which one might not find in the  
usual places for SOCNET types:

McLure Wasko, M., & Faraj, S. (2005). Why Should I Share? Examining  
Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of  
Practice. MIS Quarterly, 29(1), p35 - 57.
Daniel, S. L., & Diamant, E. I. (2008). Network Effects in OSS  
Development: The Impact of Users and Developers on Project  
Performance. In ICIS 2008 Proceedings. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2008/122 
.

In terms of Wikipedia, there is a growing body of work which I'm sure  
others will elaborate on, but a recent contribution are these papers:
Kane, G. (2009). It’s a network, not an encyclopedia: A social network  
perspective on wikipedia collaboration. In Best Paper proceedings,  
Academy of Management 2009, Chicago. Winner of OCIS best paper award.

Gorbatai, A. and Hall, M. Social Structure of Contributions to  
Wikipedia http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~hos/papers/AndreeaGorbattai/AndreeaGorbattai.pdf


Best of luck,

James

http://james.howison.name



Wiggins, A., Howison, J. and Crowston, K. (2008). Social dynamics of  
FLOSS team communication across channels. In Proceedings of the Fourth  
International Conference on Open Source Software (IFIP 2.13), Milan,  
Italy, 7-10 September.

Scialdone, Michael, Na Li, James Howison, Robert Heckman, and Kevin  
Crowston. (2008). Group Maintenance in Technology-Supported  
Distributed Teams (Full Version). Paper presented at 2008 Academy of  
Management Annual Meeting: The Questions We Ask. Anaheim, CA: August  
8-13, 2008.

Howison, J., Inoue, K., and Crowston, K. (2006). Social dynamics of  
free and open source team communications. In Proceedings of the IFIP  
2nd International Conference on Open Source Software, Lake Como,  
Italy. Best Paper Award.

Crowston, K., Wei, K., Li, Q., & Howison, J. (2006). Core and  
periphery in Free/Libre and Open Source software team communications.  
Paper presented at the Hawai'i International Conference on System  
System (HICSS-39), Kaua'i, Hawai'i.

Crowston, K., & Howison, J. (2006). Hierarchy and centralization in  
Free and Open Source Software team communications. Knowledge,  
Technology & Policy, 18(4), 65–85.

Crowston, K. & Howison, J. (2005). The social structure of Free and  
Open Source software development. First Monday, February.

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