Hypothesis

How does the use of workflow tools aid online collaboration and knowledge sharing of online repositories?

Aims and Objectives

 Aims

• Identify tools and methods for effective workflow and knowledge collaboration on community projects.
• Analyze how users are implementing methodologies to aid in their projects and knowledge sharing.
• To identify and understand the effects of work flow and online collaboration tools and how it effects open source collaboration and knowledge sharing of these sites.

Objectives

• Educate users about workflow and collaboration methodologies to aid in their projects and knowledge sharing.
• Create a 3^rd party or in house system or set of tools for users to manage community workflow while communicating and sharing information.
• Simplify the process of information sharing for users by creating an easier to navigate system/ forum on the Hackaday.io site. 
  
  

Design Criteria

The tools and or systems used by Hackaday.io must possess the following features

• The use of workflow and collaboration methodologies should be present.
• Be clear about what the system can do, and how the user can make effective use of it.
• Promote creative collaboration and knowledge sharing.
• Users have the ability to manage projects and milestones on the site for the use of participants help collaborate and monitor the progress of the project.
• Make it easy for users who need to gather critical information and share data.
• Create a virtual workspace to log all conversations and work done by users to help them get back to where they left off.

In regards towards the research the following should be achieved.

• Understanding of hackaday.io and how its members, post and share information and collaborate online.
  
• Identifying different online workflow and collaboration tools and how they could be implemented in an online community such as Hackaday.io.
  
• How Hackaday.io logs and presents users projects, comments, images and files.
  
• How users are able to comment and collaborate on a members post and build log.
• The use of virtual teams and their management on the site.

Limitations

The following projects limitations are broken up into two parts. The first is the local limitations that I could face while visiting local businesses, maker and hacker stations, while the second is the online limitations that I will face while interviewing online members and the community forums.

Local

• Would not be able to interview entire maker and hacker community of Cape Town.
• Limited to members who are available at the workshop on a certain day.
• Small local community of makers.
• Limited to workshops within Cape Town, not able to visit other workshops outside the province

Online

• Online interviews would have to be conducted via video conference and affected by time zone and internet connection.
• Due to geographic differences of the community, the response time and interaction is heavily effected by different time zones resulting in longer duration of gathering data.
• Online surveys and questionnaires limit the in-depth answers of the participants resulting in less effective insights gathered.
• Lack of participation from community members may result in inefficient or skewed data.
• Testing of ideas or prototypes can reach a greater audience however result in less descriptive reviews and insights.
• Surveys and focus group forums need to follow rules set by site.

What is possible

• Interview members of the local maker station and hacker space in Cape Town.
• Create a project page on Hackaday.io to record process and receive feedback and collaborate from users.
  
• Gather insights and experience during internship and receive guidance from host.
• Present workflow methods to local maker and hacker members and receive feedback.
• Introduce workflow and collaboration methodologies on project page for online users to view, try and send feedback.
• Send surveys to Hackaday’s forum and the social media page of the maker and hacker community....