Department of Environmental Conservation

Associate Professor, NRC and Center for Public Policy and Administration
Associate Director, National Center for Digital Government
Co-Director and founder, UMass Amherst Open Source Laboratory

217 Holdsworth Hall
E-Mail: cschweikcschweik(at)pubpol.umass.edu

Links: Selectedworks (where you can find some of my published work); CV (pdf)

Primary Interests

My research focus is on public sector information technology, environmental management and policy, and the intersection of these domains.

Current Projects

• Study of Internet-based open source and open content collaboration
• Co-Director and founder, UMass Open Source lab
• Experiments in mobile phone-based crowdsourcing

Active or Recent Courses

• Information Technology in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors (PPA 631/NRC 697I) – Spring 2011.
• Introduction to Spatial Technologies (NRC297s) – Spring 2011

• Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (NRC 592G/PPA 697) (Fall 2010)
• Spring 2007. On-line course on Open Source Geographic Information Systems. Participants from several different countries, including Nigeria, Uganda, Brazil, and the United States. Most of the course material is available at the OSgeo.org educational inventory page.

Selected Recent Publications

• Proceedings of the OSS 2012 Doctoral Consortium
  Papers accepted (and revised) by doctoral students who participated in the Open Source Systems (OSS) 2012 Doctoral Consortium, Hammamet, Tunisia
• Introduction to Geographic Science Using ArcGIS V10
  This is a lab exercise manual with extra supplemental exercises for use in an introductory course in GIS for students in environmental conservation programs or studying public policy public administra …
• Introduction to Geographic Information Systems using ArcGIS v10
  A lab exercise manual used in an Introduction to Geographic Information Systems class designed for undergraduates or graduate students. Material takes students though the fundamentals using ArcGIS v10 …
• Proceedings of the OSS 2011 Doctoral Consortium
  Proceedings of the Open Source Systems 2011 Doctoral Consortium that was co-located with the 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2011), October 5th, 2011 in Salvador Brazil. http: …
• Toward Open Public Administration Scholarship
  This essay focuses on the potential of information communication technologies to move the Public Administration (PA) scholarly community into a new information paradigm. We begin with a review of conv …
• Applying Elinor Ostrom's Rule Classification Framework to the Analysis of Open Source Software Commons
  This research investigates the utility of Ostrom and Crawford’s rule classification framework (elaborated in Understanding Institutional Diversity) in the systematic study of rule systems in a set of …
• Success and Abandonment in Open Source Commons: Selected Findings from an Empirical Study of Sourceforge.net Projects
  Some open source software collaborations are sustained over long periods of time and across several versions of a software product, while others become abandoned even before the first version of the p …
• Factors Leading to Success or Abandonment of Open Source Commons: An Empirical Analysis of Sourceforge.net Projects
  Open source software is produced cooperatively by groups of people who work together via the Internet. The software produced usually becomes the “common property” of the group and is freely distribute …
• Open-Source Collaboration: Two Cases in the U.S. Public Sector
  Globally, there is an emergence of open source consortia focused on the sharing of resources and code, and a desire to promote an open source approach generally. In this paper, we describe our finding …
• Reflections of an Online Geographic Information Systems Course Based on Open Source Software
  This article summarizes the experience of offering an online introductory course on geographic information systems (GIS) that utilizes available free/libre and open source software (FOSS). Two primary …
• “Brooks’ versus Linus’ Law: An Empirical Test of Open Source Projects
  In this paper, we investigate collective action in open source software development, where both volunteers and paid professionals essentially produce a public good. By using a large dataset, our logis …
• Free / Open Source Software as a Framework for Scientific Collaboration
  
• Forest fragmentation and regrowth in an institutional mosaic of community, government and private ownership in Nepal
  This study analyzes forest change in an area of Nepal that signifies a delicate balance between sustaining the needs and livelihood of a sizable human population dependent on forest products, and an e …
• Identifying Success and Abandonment of FLOSS Commons: A Classification of Sourceforge.net Projects
  Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects are a form of commons where individuals work collectively to produce software that is a public, rather than a private, good. The famous phrase “Tra …
• Tragedy of the FOSS Commons? Investigating the Institutional Designs of Free/Libre and Open Source Software Projects
  Free/Libre and Open Source Software projects (FOSS) are a form of Internet-based commons. Since 1968, when Garrett Hardin published his famous article “Tragedy of the Commons” in the journal Science, …