I led a paper with Sarah Webster (HCI Masters Student) and Dr. Brian Butler that was recently accepted to the CSCW 2015 conference! In the paper we examine the phenomenon of entirely user-generated, open education communities through a study of P2PU. Our paper uses log data from P2PU to show how fostering peer to peer collaboration and helping participants gain experience in open education settings are the critical factors needed to cultivate course developers (or peers who take on the task of creating more courses for others). You can read a draft of the paper here: PDF.
Professor, University of California, Irvine