Abstract:

Peer production can be defined to include the digital content created, edited, enriched by peers, in other words by people on the ”same hierarchical level”. The contemporary examples in the Internet of peer produced digital content include e.g. YouTube , Facebook , blogs, flickr , slashdot.org etc. Peer production is becoming an important element in modern eLearning. The potential peer production and user-created content has been supported by the development of Internet from one-way information distribution to two-way communication. In this process ordinary learners will enter the nucleus of digital learning material content production.

The quality management challenge in eLearning content produced by peer production can, however, undermine the merits of this approach and method. The quality work methodology in peer production is at its best dispersed and fragmented. The very nature of peer production is its free flow and thus any formal mechanism could be drastically against the creativity factor. At the moment there are already a number of useful tools and approaches used (such as tools for peer reviews, tools for creating own wikis, dictionaries etc.) to ensure and improve the quality of peer produced eLearning content. However, it is important to emphasize that peer production requires also enabling and supporting structures and their effective management. The key issue is to develop a holistic approach to peer production, which enables also the effective utilization of this unique method.

Within the EU-funded QMPP project we have developed a model for the effective management of quality in peer production. It includes two important elements - these are the “peer production cycle” and the “supporting activities”. The “peer production cycle” includes the following phases:
- benchmarking – identifying of good cases and practices, identifying of good digital resources, identifying areas of lacking content, sharing learning experiences
- creating – (shared) authoring of texts and other resources; creating images, audio and video materials; creating wikis etc.
- validating – validating content with subject matter experts, validating content with peers, rating the validity of the content etc.
- editing – sharing editing responsibilities (from proof-reading to translation), undertaking peer reviews, creating alternative navigational routes etc.
- enriching – creating additional content materials, publishing individual works and team works, sharing or learning (b)logs, adding library links, social bookmarking, creating wikis etc.
- updating – monitoring existing content, updating existing content, adding specific area content etc.

It is obvious in favoring peer production we must also have enabling and supporting structures. These should include the following:
- enabling policies – organizational opportunities for peer production of content (such as time resources allocated for peer production), management support for peer production, access to various digital resources etc.
- enabling procedures – organizational support for peer production, guidelines for peer production and peer reviews, guidelines of IPRs, agreement on compensation policies etc.
- enabling processes – practical support of peer production, agreed and supported processes and workflows for peer production
- enabling tools – joint and shared tools to be used in peer production to provide effective and fluent collaborative work.

Keywords:

peer production, quality, elearning, user-created content.