VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Ofer Arazy
dblp:46/7592
· DBLP profile ↗
26ranked-venue papers
9as first author
3since 2021 · last 2026
0000-0001-8254-0569ORCID · corroborated
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 19 · 4 first-author · 3 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 10 · 6 first-authorApplied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 4 · 1 first-author
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Context shapes disclosure: understanding self-presentation in augmented realityabstractAbstract Augmented reality (AR) introduces new dynamics for personal information sharing by embedding digital content into shared physical spaces. While prior work has examined comfort and privacy concerns in AR, less is known about why people choose to disclose personal information and how social context shapes these decisions. We conducted a mixed-methods study with 20 participants across three fictional scenarios that varied in formality and social norms. Participants disclosed information to clarify identity, build relationships, and strategically manage impressions, yet patterns varied by setting: intimate details were sometimes shared in casual contexts despite acknowledged risks, while professional contexts raised concerns about appropriateness. Based on these findings, we present an AR-adapted disclosure decision model that treats context as an active moderator of perceived risks and benefits and highlights the roles of control and reciprocity in co-present environments. We conclude with design recommendations for context-sensitive privacy mechanisms that support selective and reciprocal disclosure in AR. Gal Hadad, Amber Maimon, Ofer Arazy, Joel Lanir |
Pers. Ubiquitous Comput. | 3 |
| 2021 | Who Owns What? Psychological Ownership in Shared Augmented Reality
Lev Poretski, Ofer Arazy, Joel Lanir, Oded Nov |
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. | 2 |
| 2021 | Physicality As an Anchor for Coordination: Examining Collocated Collaboration in Physical and Mobile Augmented Reality SettingsabstractDesign and co-creation activities around 3D artifacts often require close collocated coordination between multiple users. Augmented reality (AR) technology can support collocated work enabling users to flexibly work with digital objects while still being able to use the physical space for coordination. With most of current research focusing on remote AR collaboration, less is known about collocated collaboration in AR, particularly in relation to interpersonal dynamics between the collocated collaborators. Our study aims at understanding how shared augmented reality facilitated by mobile devices (mobile augmented reality or MAR) affects collocated users' coordination. We compare the coordination behaviors that emerged in a MAR setting with those in a comparable fully physical setting by simulating the same task -of the shared physical dimension for participants' ability to coordinate in the context of collaborative co-creation. Namely, participants working in a fully physical setting were better able to leverage the work artifact itself for their coordination needs, working in a mode that we term artifact-oriented coordination. Conversely, participants collaborating around an AR artifact leveraged the shared physical workspace for their coordination needs, working in what we refer to as space-oriented coordination. We discuss implications for a AR-based collaboration and propose directions for designers of AR tools. Lev Poretski, Joel Lanir, Ram Margalit, Ofer Arazy |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 4 |
| 2019 | Virtual Objects in the Physical World: Relatedness and Psychological Ownership in Augmented RealityabstractAs technology advances, people increasingly interact with virtual objects in settings such as augmented reality (AR) where the virtual layer is superimposed on top of the physical world. Similarly to interactions with physical objects, users may assign virtual objects with value, experience a sense of relatedness, and develop psychological ownership over these objects. The objective of this study is to understand how AR's unique characteristics influences the emergence of meaning and ownership perceptions amongst users. We conducted a study of users' interactions with a virtual dog over a three-week period, comparing AR and fully virtual settings. Our findings show that engagement with the application is a key determinant of the relation users develop with virtual objects. However, the effect of the background layer-whether physical or virtual-dominates the development of relatedness and ownership feelings, highlighting the importance of the "real" physical layer in shaping users' perceptions. Lev Poretski, Ofer Arazy, Joel Lanir, Shalev Shahar, Oded Nov |
CHI | 2 |
| 2019 | Feel the image: The role of emotions in the image-seeking processabstractImages are characterized by a complex system of attributes. One of the most elusive properties of an image is its emotiveness – the ability to trigger an emotional reaction in the viewer. Prior research has demonstrated that users react to image emotiveness, yet to date there is little theoretical understanding and scarce empirical evidence as to the role played by emotiveness in the image retrieval process. Our study aims to fill this gap and investigates how users perceive the emotional content of the image-seeking task; explicate this emotional content in search keywords; and react to image emotiveness in selecting relevant images. Using a multimethod approach that combines quantitative and qualitative analyses, we performed three experiments where participants searched for images, both within the predefined set of images and in an open Web environment. Our findings suggest that although seekers rarely explicate image emotiveness in search keywords, their decision to select relevant images is largely dependent on their perception of the emotional content of the task and images. We discuss implications for research on emotions in image retrieval, as well as practical implications for designers of search systems. Lev Poretski, Joel Lanir, Ofer Arazy |
Hum. Comput. Interact. | 3 |
| 2019 | Neither a Bazaar nor a cathedral: The interplay between structure and agency in Wikipedia's role systemabstractRoles provide a key coordination mechanism in peer‐production. Whereas one stream in the literature has focused on the structural responsibilities associated with roles, another has stressed the emergent nature of work. To date, these streams have proceeded largely in parallel. In seeking to enhance our understanding of the tension between structure and agency in peer‐production, we investigated the interplay between structural and emergent roles. Our study explored the breadth of structural roles in Wikipedia (English version) and their linkage to various forms of activities. Our analyses show that despite the latitude in selecting their mode of participation, participants' structural and emergent roles are tightly coupled. Our discussion highlights that: (a) participants often stay close to the “production ground floor” despite the assignment into structural roles; and (b) there are typical modifications in activity patterns associated with role‐assignment, namely: functional specialization, multispecialization, defunctionalization, changes in communication patterns, management of identity, and role definition. We contribute to theory of coordination and roles, as well as provide some practical implications. Ofer Arazy, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Adam Balila |
J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. | 1 |
| 2018 | Normative Tensions in Shared Augmented RealityabstractNovel collaborative technologies afford new modes of behavior, which are often not regulated by established social norms. In particular, shared augmented reality (AR) - where multiple users can create, attach, and interact with the same virtual elements embedded into the physical environment - has the potential to interrupt current social norms of behavior. The objective of our study is to shed light on the ways in which shared AR challenges existing behavioral expectations. Using a simulated lab experimental design, we performed a study of users' interactions in a shared AR setting. Content analysis of participants' interviews reveals users' concerns over the preservation of their self- and social identity, as well as concerns related to personal space and the sense of psychological ownership over one's body and belongings. Our findings also point to the need for regulation of shared AR spaces and design of the technology's control mechanisms. Lev Poretski, Joel Lanir, Ofer Arazy |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 3 |
| 2017 | Investigating the Motivational Paths of Peer Production NewcomersabstractMaintaining participation beyond the initial period of engagement is critical for peer production systems. Theory suggests that an increase in motivation is expected with contributors' movement from the community periphery to the core. Less is known, however, about how specific motivations change over time. We fill this gap by focusing on individual motivational paths in the formative periods of engagement, exploring which motivations change and how. We collected data on various instrumental and non-instrumental motivations at two points in study participants? Wikipedia career: when they started editing and again after six months. We found that non-instrumental motivations (including collective and intrinsic motives) decreased significantly over time, in contrast with socially-driven motivations such as norm-oriented motivates which did not change and social motives which increased marginally. The findings offer new insights into newcomers' evolving motivations, with implications for designing and managing peer-production systems. Martina Balestra, Coye Cheshire, Ofer Arazy, Oded Nov |
CHI | 3 |
| 2017 | On the "How" and "Why" of Emergent Role Behaviors in WikipediaabstractResearch on peer-production suggests that as participants choose what actions to perform, prototypical activity patterns emerge. Recent work characterized these patterns and demonstrated that informal emergent roles are highly stable. Nonetheless, we know little about the ways in which contributors take on and shed emergent roles. The objectives of this study are to: (a) delineate the temporal dynamics of participants' emergent role taking behaviors, and (b) identify the motivations driving role-transition behaviors. Our study links motivation to role-transition behaviors within Wikipedia. Our first sample covered eleven years and 222,119 contributors, and was used to identify four categories of temporal role-taking behaviors, that differ in their mobility between emergent roles and across Wikipedia articles. Our second examination linked the motivations of 175 new participants to their subsequent role-taking activity over 14 months. Together, the two analyses reveal that role-taking categories can be distinguished based on participants' motivational orientation (intrinsic/extrinsic and self/others-oriented). Ofer Arazy, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Oded Nov, Johannes Daxenberger, Martina Balestra, Coye Cheshire |
CSCW | 1 |
| 2017 | Placing Value on Community Co-creations: A Study of a Video Game 'Modding' CommunityabstractFirms developing software -- and in particular, video game producers - seek to leverage the community of users/developers in enhancing product offering and increasing sales. Despite the practical importance of this phenomena, to date little research has investigated the actual value such communities add aside from few qualitative case studies of successful synergies between commercial enterprises and open-source communities. The objective of this study is to try and quantitatively assess the effectiveness of firms' efforts to increase sales of their product through inducing community's co-creation activity. Our empirical investigation focuses on producers of video games and their user/developer 'modding' community. An analysis of 45 games reveals that when firms are successful at engaging the community, the value added by the modding community contributes to an increase in sales of the base product. Implications for research on open innovation and for practitioners are discussed. Lev Poretski, Ofer Arazy |
CSCW | 2 |
| 2017 | It was Fun, but Did it Last?: The Dynamic Interplay between Fun Motives and Contributors' Activity in Peer ProductionabstractPeer production communities often struggle to retain contributors beyond initial engagement. This may be a result of contributors' level of motivation, as it is deeply intertwined with activity. Existing studies on participation focus on activity dynamics but overlook the accompanied changes in motivation. To fill this gap, this study examines the interplay between contributors' fun motives and activity over time. We combine motivational data from two surveys of Wikipedia newcomers with data of two periods of editing activity. We find that persistence in editing is related to fun, while the amount of editing is not: individuals who persist in editing are characterized by higher fun motives early on (when compared to dropouts), though their motives are not related to the number of edits made. Moreover, we found that newcomers' experience of fun was reinforced by their amount of activity over time: editors who were initially motivated by fun entered a virtuous cycle, whereas those who initially had low fun motives entered a vicious cycle. Our findings shed new light on the importance of early experiences and reveal that the relationship between motivation and participation levels is more complex than previously understood. Martina Balestra, Lior Zalmanson, Coye Cheshire, Ofer Arazy, Oded Nov |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 4 |
| 2016 | Analyzing Organizational Routines in Online Knowledge Collaborations: A Case for Sequence Analysis in CSCWabstractResearch into socio-technical systems like Wikipedia has overlooked important structural patterns in the coordination of distributed work. This paper argues for a conceptual reorientation towards sequences as a fundamental unit of analysis for understanding work routines in online knowledge collaboration. We outline a research agenda for researchers in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) to understand the relationships, patterns, antecedents, and consequences of sequential behavior using methods already developed in fields like bio-informatics. Using a data set of 37,515 revisions from 16,616 unique editors to 96 Wikipedia articles as a case study, we analyze the prevalence and significance of different sequences of editing patterns. We illustrate the mixed method potential of sequence approaches by interpreting the frequent patterns as general classes of behavioral motifs. We conclude by discussing the methodological opportunities for using sequence analysis for expanding existing approaches to analyzing and theorizing about co-production routines in online knowledge collaboration. Brian Keegan, Shakked Lev, Ofer Arazy |
CSCW | 3 |
| 2016 | Motivational Determinants of Participation Trajectories in Wikipedia
Martina Balestra, Ofer Arazy, Coye Cheshire, Oded Nov |
ICWSM | 2 |
| 2016 | Motivation to share knowledge using wiki technology and the moderating effect of role perceptionsabstractOne of the key challenges for innovation and technology‐mediated knowledge collaboration within organizational settings is motivating contributors to share their knowledge. Drawing upon self‐determination theory, we investigate 2 forms of motivation: internally driven (autonomous motivation) and externally driven (controlled motivation). Knowledge sharing could be viewed as a required in‐role activity or as discretionary extra‐role behavior. In this study, we examine the moderating effect of role perceptions on the relations between each of the two motivational constructs and knowledge sharing, paying particular attention to the affordances of the enabling information technology. An analysis of survey data from a wiki‐based organizational encyclopedia in a large, multinational firm reveals that when contributors' motivation is externally driven, they are more likely to share knowledge if this activity is viewed as in‐role behavior. However, when contributors' motivation is internally driven, they are more likely to participate in knowledge sharing when this activity is viewed as extra‐role behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Ofer Arazy, Ian R. Gellatly, Esther Brainin, Oded Nov |
J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. | 1 |
| 2015 | Functional Roles and Career Paths in WikipediaabstractAn understanding of participation dynamics within online production communities requires an examination of the roles assumed by participants. Recent studies have established that the organizational structure of such communities is not flat; rather, participants can take on a variety of well-defined functional roles. What is the nature of functional roles? How have they evolved? And how do participants assume these functions? Prior studies focused primarily on participants' activities, rather than functional roles. Further, extant conceptualizations of role transitions in production communities, such as the Reader to Leader framework, emphasize a single dimension: organizational power, overlooking distinctions between functions. In contrast, in this paper we empirically study the nature and structure of functional roles within Wikipedia, seeking to validate existing theoretical frameworks. The analysis sheds new light on the nature of functional roles, revealing the intricate "career paths" resulting from participants' role transitions. Ofer Arazy, Felipe Ortega, Oded Nov, M. Lisa Yeo, Adam Balila |
CSCW | 1 |
| 2015 | Asymmetric Recommendations: The Interacting Effects of Social Ratings? Direction and Strength on Users' RatingsabstractIn social recommendation systems, users often publicly rate objects such as photos, news articles or consumer products. When they appear in aggregate, these ratings carry social signals such as the direction and strength of the raters' average opinion about the product. Using a controlled experiment we manipulated two central social signals -- the direction and strength of social ratings of five popular consumer products -- and examined their interacting effects on users' ratings. The results show an asymmetric user behavior, where the direction of perceived social rating has a negative effect on users' ratings if the direction of perceived social rating is negative, but no effect if the direction is positive. The strength of perceived social ratings did not have a significant effect on users' ratings. The findings highlight the potential for cascading adverse effects of small number of negative user ratings on subsequent users' opinions. Oded Nov, Ofer Arazy |
RecSys | 2 |
| 2013 | Exploring personality-targeted UI design in online social participation systemsabstractWe present a theoretical foundation and empirical findings demonstrating the effectiveness of personality-targeted design. Much like a medical treatment applied to a person based on his specific genetic profile, we argue that theory-driven, personality-targeted UI design can be more effective than design applied to the entire population. The empirical exploration focused on two settings, two populations and two personality traits: Study 1 shows that users' extraversion level moderates the relationship between the UI cue of audience size and users' contribution. Study 2 demonstrates that the effectiveness of social anchors in encouraging online contributions depends on users' level of emotional stability. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the potential and robustness of the interactionist approach to UI design. The findings contribute to the HCI community, and in particular to designers of social systems, by providing guidelines to targeted design that can increase online participation. Oded Nov, Ofer Arazy, Claudia López, Peter Brusilovsky |
CHI | 2 |
| 2013 | Personality-targeted design: theory, experimental procedure, and preliminary resultsabstractWe introduce a framework for personality-targeted design. Much like a medical treatment applied to a person based on his specific genetic profile, we make the case for theory-driven personalized UI design, and argue that it can be more effective than design applied equally to the entire population. In particular, we show that users' conscientiousness levels determine their reactions to UI indicators of critical mass. We created a simulated social recommender system in which participants answer a short personality questionnaire and are subsequently presented with a picture of a pet that purports to be the "best match" for their personality. We then manipulated the UI by providing indicators of the existence and the lack of critical mass. We tested whether the interaction between personality and UI design affects users' participation. The findings validate our hypothesis, showing that manipulation of the critical mass indicators affect high-conscientiousness and low-conscientiousness participants in opposite directions. Oded Nov, Ofer Arazy |
CSCW | 2 |
| 2013 | Motivation-Targeted Personalized UI Design: A Novel Approach to Enhancing Citizen Science Participation
Oded Nov, Ofer Arazy, Kelly Lotts, Thomas Naberhaus |
ECSCW | 2 |
| 2013 | Stay on the Wikipedia task: When task-related disagreements slip into personal and procedural conflictsabstractIn Wikipedia, volunteers collaboratively author encyclopedic entries, and therefore managing conflict is a key factor in group success. Behavioral research describes 3 conflict types: task‐related, affective, and process. Affective and process conflicts have been consistently found to impede group performance; however, the effect of task conflict is inconsistent. We propose that these inconclusive results are due to underspecification of the task conflict construct, and focus on the transition phase where task‐related disagreements escalate into affective and process conflict. We define these transitional phases as distinct constructs—task‐affective and task‐process conflict—and develop a theoretical model that explains how the various task‐related conflict constructs, together with the composition of the wiki editor group, determine the quality of the collaboratively authored wiki article. Our empirical study of 96 Wikipedia articles involved multiple data‐collection methods, including analysis of Wikipedia system logs, manual content analysis of articles' discussion pages, and a comprehensive assessment of articles' quality using theDelphi method. Our results show that when group members' disagreements—originally task related—escalate into personal attacks or hinge on procedure, these disagreements impede group performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Ofer Arazy, M. Lisa Yeo, Oded Nov |
J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. | 1 |
| 2011 | Technology-Mediated Citizen Science Participation: A Motivational Model
Oded Nov, Ofer Arazy |
ICWSM | 2 |
| 2011 | On the measurability of information qualityabstractThe notion of information quality (IQ) has been investigated extensively in recent years. Much of this research has been aimed at conceptualizing IQ and its underlying dimensions (e.g., accuracy, completeness) and at developing instruments for measuring these quality dimensions. However, less attention has been given to the measurability of IQ. The objective of this study is to explore the extent to which a set of IQ dimensions—accuracy, completeness, objectivity, and representation—lend themselves to reliable measurement. By reliable measurement, we refer to the degree to which independent assessors are able to agree when rating objects on these various dimensions. Our study reveals that multiple assessors tend to agree more on certain dimensions (e.g., accuracy) while finding it more difficult to agree on others (e.g., completeness). We argue that differences in measurability stem from properties inherent to the quality dimension (i.e., the availability of heuristics that make the assessment more tangible) as well as on assessors' reliance on these cues. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Ofer Arazy, Richard W. Kopak |
J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. | 1 |
| 2010 | Determinants of wikipedia quality: the roles of global and local contribution inequalityabstractThe success of Wikipedia and the relative high quality of its articles seem to contradict conventional wisdom. Recent studies have begun shedding light on the processes contributing to Wikipedia's success, highlighting the role of coordination and contribution inequality. In this study, we expand on these works in two ways. First, we make a distinction between global (Wikipedia-wide) and local (article-specific) inequality and investigate both constructs. Second, we explore both direct and indirect effects of these inequalities, exposing the intricate relationships between global inequality, local inequality, coordination, and article quality. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of a Wikipedia articles using structural equation modeling and found that global inequality exerts significant positive impact on article quality, while the effect of local inequality is indirect and is mediated by coordination Ofer Arazy, Oded Nov |
CSCW | 1 |
| 2010 | Volunteer computing: a model of the factors determining contribution to community-based scientific researchabstractVolunteer computing is a powerful way to harness distributed resources to perform large-scale tasks, similarly to other types of community-based initiatives. Volunteer computing is based on two pillars: the first is computational - allocating and managing large computing tasks; the second is participative - making large numbers of individuals volunteer their computer resources to a project. While the computational aspects of volunteer computing received much research attention, the participative aspect remains largely unexplored. In this study we aim to address this gap: by drawing on social psychology and online communities research, we develop and test a three-dimensional model of the factors determining volunteer computing users' contribution. We investigate one of the largest volunteer computing projects - [email protected] - by linking survey data about contributors' motivations to their activity logs. Our findings highlight the differences between volunteer computing and other forms of community-based projects, and reveal the intricate relationship between individual motivations, social affiliation, tenure in the project, and resource contribution. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Oded Nov, Ofer Arazy |
WWW | 3 |
| 2010 | Recognizing contributions in wikis: Authorship categories, algorithms, and visualizationsabstractAbstract Wikis are designed to support collaborative editing, without focusing on individual contribution, such that it is not straightforward to determine who contributed to a specific page. However, as wikis are increasingly adopted in settings such as business, government, and education, where editors are largely driven by career goals, there is a perceived need to modify wikis so that each editor's contributions are clearly presented. In this paper we introduce an approach for assessing the contributions of wiki editors along several authorship categories, as well as a variety of information glyphs for visualizing this information. We report on three types of analysis: (a) assessing the accuracy of the algorithms, (b) estimating the understandability of the visualizations, and (c) exploring wiki editors' perceptions regarding the extent to which such an approach is likely to change their behavior. Our findings demonstrate that our proposed automated techniques can estimate fairly accurately the quantity of editors' contributions across various authorship categories, and that the visualizations we introduced can clearly convey this information to users. Moreover, our user study suggests that such tools are likely to change wiki editors' behavior. We discuss both the potential benefits and risks associated with solutions for estimating and visualizing wiki contributions. Ofer Arazy, Eleni Stroulia, Stan Ruecker, Cristina Arias, Carlos Fiorentino, Veselin Ganev, Timothy Yau |
J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. | 1 |
| 2009 | A Utility for Estimating the Relative Contributions of Wiki Authors
Ofer Arazy, Eleni Stroulia |
ICWSM | 1 |