Representing Crowd Knowledge: Guidelines for Conceptual Modeling of User-generated Content

The increasing reliance of organizations on externally produced information, such as online user-generated content (UGC) and crowdsourcing, challenges common assumptions about conceptual modeling in information systems (IS) development. We demonstrate the societal importance of UGC, analyze the distinguishing characteristics of UGC and identify specific conceptual modeling challenges in this setting, evaluate traditional and recently proposed approaches to modeling UGC, propose a set of conceptual modeling guidelines to be used in development of IS that harness structured UGC; and demonstrate how to implement and evaluate the proposed using a case of development of a real crowdsourcing (citizen science) IS. We conclude by considering implications for conceptual modeling research and practice.

Lukyanenko, R., Parsons J, Wiersma Y., Wachinger G., Huber B. & Meldt R. (2017). Representing Crowd Knowledge: Guidelines for Conceptual Modeling of User-generated Content. Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS). 18 (4), pp. 297-339.