Thorn and Connolly conducted research that conceptualize information in a database as a public good. They concluded that it is likely that individuals will not share their personally held most-valuable in- formation through such systems. They identified cost as a factor for individuals considering sharing their valuable, personally held information in terms of “sharing cost”the time and/or effort that is required by the individual to share knowledge through a computer system. They concluded that this cost is something that is considered by the potential sharer when making the decision of whether to contribute.