Logically and traditionally, before contributing new knowledge the contributor must attain the requisite background knowledge through schooling, training, practice and experience. Given the limited time in the connected world, ease of contribution and with the new speed of contribution – individuals often choose either to focus on few areas, where they build deep expertise, or to delve less deeply and distribute their attention and efforts across several areas.
In the paper – Individual focus and knowledge contribution First Monday [Online], Volume 15 Number 3 (21 February 2010) – the authors Lada A. Adamic, Xiao Wei, Jiang Yang, Sean Gerrish, Kevin K. Nam and Gavin S. Clarkson have tried measuring the relationship between the narrowness of focus and the quality of contribution across a range of both traditional and recent knowledge sharing media, including scholarly articles, patents, Wikipedia, and online question and answer forums. Across all systems, it was observed that a small but significant positive correlation exists between focus and quality.
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