Section: New Results

Research Methods

Participants : Caroline Appert, Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Anastasia Bezerianos, Olivier Chapuis, Jérémie Garcia, Stéphane Huot, Ilaria Liccardi, Wendy Mackay [correspondant] , Emmanuel Pietriga.

InkSplore [19] . We conducted three studies with contemporary music composers at IRCAM. We found that even highly computer-literate composers use an iterative process that begins with expressing musical ideas on paper, followed by active parallel exploration on paper and in software, prior to final execution of their ideas as an original score. We conducted a participatory design study that focused on the creative exploration phase, to design tools that help composers better integrate their paper-based and electronic activities. We then developed InkSplorer as a technology probe that connects users? hand-written gestures on paper to Max/MSP and OpenMusic. Composers appropriated InkSplorer according to their preferred composition styles, emphasizing its ability to help them quickly explore musical ideas on paper as they interact with the computer. We conclude with recommendations for designing interactive paper tools that support the creative process, letting users explore musical ideas both on paper and electronically.

Wikibook: [22] . With the Wikibook project [22] we investigate how Wikibooks authors collaborate to create high-quality books. We combined Information Retrieval and statistical techniques to examine the complete multi-year lifecycle of over 50 high-quality Wikibooks. We found that: 1. The presence of redundant material is negatively correlated with collaboration mechanisms; 2. For most books, over 50% of the content is written by a small core of authors; and 3. Use of collaborative tools (predicted pages and talk pages) is significantly correlated with patterns of redundancy. Non-redundant books are well-planned from the beginning and require fewer talk pages to reach high-quality status. Initially redundant books begin with high redundancy, which drops as soon as authors use coordination tools to restructure the content. Suddenly redundant books display sudden bursts of redundancy that must be resolved, requiring significantly more discussion to reach high-quality status. These findings suggest that providing core authors with effective tools for visualizing and removing redundant material may increase writing speed and improve the book's ultimate quality.