Creating and Sustaining Online Communities

2004 ◽  
pp. 132-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Community Initiatives ◽  
Seed Funding ◽  
Rural Context ◽  
Initial Seed

This chapter explores the challenges of establishing and sustaining online communities and regional portals. Theory relevant to online communities, particularly in a regional and rural context, is introduced to provide a background for the MainStreet Regional Portal case study. The author hopes that the dissemination of information on the critical learnings from this project will assist in informing others about the diverse factors which can impact on creating and sustaining online community initiatives, long after initial seed funding has been expended.

scholarly journals Researching online communities of inquiry through digital ethnography

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 01006
Author(s):  
Neil Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Communities Of Inquiry

Research into providing effective online education has suggested an important goal for instructors is the creation of an online community of inquiry (CoI) where social, cognitive, and teacher presence are all important aspects of successful online learning. With reference to a recent reflective practice case study, this paper describes ways that the research on online communities of inquiry may be enriched through the use of digital ethnography. In the target reflective case study, data analysis tasks were designed and presented in an online VoiceThread site, promoting dialogic and multimodal engagement with data from actual research studies that are central to the module theme in teacher education. Interaction around these tasks is coded using the CoI framework. Ethnographic data from the participants was collected and coded using qualitative research protocols to contextualise the interaction data and provide a clearer understanding of how participants had come together throughout the module. The ethnographic data revealed some interesting concerns with online learning, including the use of technology as a barrier to participation.

scholarly journals Online Communities and Open Innovation

Economics ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 652-666
Author(s):  
Alberto Francesconi ◽  
Riccardo Bonazzi ◽  
Claudia Dossena
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Absorptive Capacity ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Linear Process ◽  
Innovation Approach

Online communities are becoming an important way to support firms towards an open innovation approach. However, knowledge shared in an online community represents only a potential for firm's innovation aims. The effectiveness of exploration and exploitation of this knowledge depends on firm's absorptive capacity. In this work the authors focus on the time an idea, shared within an online community, takes to be transformed from a ‘potential' into a ‘realized' innovation by a firm. In particular, conceiving knowledge as a trajectory across pole of attraction rather than a linear process, the authors develop a model inspired by the solar system metaphor. Preliminary results from a case study are presented. They suggest firms may improve the effectiveness of absorptive capacity exploiting the mediation role of a software tool.

scholarly journals Developing Online Communities for Librarian Researchers: A Case Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 512
Author(s):  
Lili Luo ◽  
Marie Kennedy ◽  
Kristine Brancolini ◽  
Michael Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Conference Attendance

This study examines the role of online communities in connecting and supporting librarian researchers, through the analysis of member activities in the online community for academic librarians that attended the 2014 Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL). The 2014 IRDL cohort members participated in the online community via Twitter and a Facebook group page. A content analysis of their posts and an online survey among them identified different patterns of engagement and four primary types of content—posts related to completing the IRDL research project required for each cohort member, announcements about research-related resources and opportunities, posts reminiscing about the IRDL experience, and arrangements of conference attendance and meetups. Implications for successfully designing online communities for librarian researchers are discussed.

scholarly journals Throwing Pebbles into a Dark Cave: A Study of Participation and Behaviour in the {act-km} Online Community

2007 ◽  
Vol 06 (02) ◽  
pp. 139-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Timbrell ◽  
Patrick Lambe ◽  
Ørjan Taule
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Activity Profile ◽  
Constituent Elements

This article defines online communities and their constituent elements. It provides a framework in which online communities can be discussed and compared irrespective of topic or content. It explores the notions of core and peripheral membership and behaviour and provides a set of metrics for determining the activity profile of the community. Finally it presents a case study of an online community and discusses it using the framework and metrics presented.

Contributors and Lurkers

2010 ◽  
pp. 36-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Beamish
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Limited Knowledge ◽  
Exploratory Case Study ◽  
Log Files ◽  
Architecture And Design

The long-term sustainability of online communities depends on the active participation and contribution of its members, but we have limited knowledge about why individuals do not post and how online communities can differ. This chapter presents an exploratory case study of contribution rates and lurking in a professional international online community that focuses on architecture and design in the Islamic world. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the community and the lurking behavior of its members. Using a web-based survey and log files, it asked three primary questions: Who contributes? Where do they contribute? And what reasons do members give for not contributing?

Gamification for Online Communities: A Case Study for Delivering Government Services

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (02) ◽  
pp. 1441002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanat Kumar Bista ◽  
Surya Nepal ◽  
Cécile Paris ◽  
Nathalie Colineau
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Human Services ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Sustainable Operation

Gamification, the idea of inserting game dynamics into portals or social networks, has recently evolved as an approach to encourage active participation in online communities. For an online community to start and proceed on to a sustainable operation, it is important that members are encouraged to contribute positively and frequently. We decided to introduce gamification in an online community that we designed and developed with the Australian Government's Department of Human Services to support welfare recipients transitioning from one payment to another. We first defined a formal model of gamification and a gamification design process. In instantiating our model to the online community, we realised that our context applied a number of constraints on the gamification elements that could be introduced. In this paper, we outline the design and implementation of a gamification model for online communities and its instantiation into our context, with its specific requirements. While we cannot comment on the success of gamification to drive user engagement in our context (for lack of the possibility of a controlled experiment), we found our implementation of badges-based gamification a helpful way to provide a useful abstraction on the life of the community, providing feedback enabling us to monitor and analyze the community. We thus show how feedback provided by such gamification data has a potential to be useful to community providers to better understand the community needs and addressing them appropriately to maintain a level of engagement in the community.

Online Communities and Open Innovation

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Francesconi ◽  
Riccardo Bonazzi ◽  
Claudia Dossena
Keyword(s):  
Absorptive Capacity ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Linear Process ◽  
Exploration And Exploitation ◽  
Innovation Approach

Online communities are becoming an important way to support firms towards an open innovation approach. However, knowledge shared in an online community represents only a potential for firm’s innovation aims. The effectiveness of exploration and exploitation of this knowledge depends on firm’s absorptive capacity. In this work the authors focus on the time an idea, shared within an online community, takes to be transformed from a ‘potential’ into a ‘realized’ innovation by a firm. In particular, conceiving knowledge as a trajectory across pole of attraction rather than a linear process, the authors develop a model inspired by the solar system metaphor. Preliminary results from a case study are presented. They suggest firms may improve the effectiveness of absorptive capacity exploiting the mediation role of a software tool.

scholarly journals Customer cocreation experience in online communities: antecedents and outcomes

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeynep Didem Nohutlu ◽  
Basil G. Englis ◽  
Aard J. Groen ◽  
Efthymios Constantinides
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Service Improvement ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Market Research Company ◽  
Collaborative Innovation

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to obtain an in-depth insight into the nature and impact of customers´ cocreation experiences in online communities and the effects of customer cocreation on innovation processes.Design/methodology/approachThis study is focused on an online cocreation community created by a market research company on behalf of a company. By means of a case study approach and through in-depth interviews, the authors identify the actual customer experiences and measure (or assess) the degree of involvement of customer creativity and experience in new idea generation.FindingsCocreation experience can be enhanced through evoking pragmatic, sociability, usability and hedonic experiences and more positive experiences and therefore, outcomes of collaborative innovation in online communities can be achieved. Findings show a classification of each role the community moderator/community manager and peer online community members perform as antecedents of cocreation experience, highlight the value of group feeling/sense of community/sense of belonging and homophily/communality in achieving that, the nature of a supportive online platform and give an overview of positive and negative outcomes of cocreation experience.Originality/valueThis case study provides with valuable insights in the phenomenon of customer cocreation and how to enhance participation of community members in collaborative innovation in online communities through positive experience, which is important for businesses involved in innovation trajectories and product and service improvement efforts.

Motives to participate in an online community for professionals

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 498-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sohel M. Imroz
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Case Study Method ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Case Research ◽  
Single Case Research ◽  
Using Data

Purpose Although the numbers of online community members continue to increase every day, most of the user-generated content in online communities comes from only a small percentage of members who are motivated to participate and contribute. While studies have been conducted on other professional online communities (e.g. teachers, mathematics practitioners, software developers, etc.), the online community for ServiceNow practitioners is not fully understood. Studies of this group could be useful to organizations that seek to understand ServiceNow practitioners’ motives to participate in these communities, fulfill their specific needs, and build and maintain a thriving community of users. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative case study method was used to learn what motivates ServiceNow practitioners to contribute and participate in ServiceNow communities. Data were collected from interviews with the participants, their stories and testimonials and physical artifacts created and used by them. Data analysis was carried out using data triangulation and continuous coding process. Findings Three primary motives were identified: find answers to questions or issues, learn about ServiceNow products and services, and share knowledge and expertise with others. Research limitations/implications As a single-case research method was used, findings of this study may not be generalized to a larger population. Originality/value Results should encourage and increase participation by ServiceNow Community's members, create a repository of knowledge and relationships that can improve their value and effectiveness, and help their organizations maintain competitive advantage.

From Fringe to Formalisation: An Experiment in Fostering Interactive Public Service Media

2015 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Collaborative Practices ◽  
Community Platforms ◽  
Governance Models ◽  
Creative Production

The role assumed by institutions that directly develop and support online communities has emerged as a crucial factor in the development of self-governance models for online communities engaging in collaborative practices. Commonly, online communities reject top-down governance models in favour of a meritocracy that positions users in authoritative positions because of their online performance. Scholarly research into online communities suggests that their governance models are horizontal, even where the community platforms are being developed or supported by commercial institutions. Questions of authority and power emerge when institutional, top-down governance models intersect with online community meritocracy in day-to-day communicative activities and while engaging in creative production. This article examines an experiment in fostering interactive public service media by users of the now-defunct ABC Pool through the case study of Ariadne. It tracks how early user-driven ideas for creativity were aligned with the interests of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation through a process of community self-governance alongside cultural intermediation.

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