Category Archives: Communities

Quentin Jones (10.1.06)

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Quentin Jones (1997)

Virtual communities, virtual settlements and cyber-archaeology: a theoretical outline

JCMC 3(3)

Defining a cyber-settlement and a virtual community

Cyber settlement is a cyber-place that is symbolically delineated by a topic of interest and within which a significant proportion of interrelated group-CMC occurs. A virtual community is a set of social relationships forged via a virtual settlement.

A cyber settlement requires:

* Minimum level of interactivity Interactivity is the extent to which messages in a sequence relate to each other, and especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages. This demand for interactivity means that an email list which distributes information is not a virtual community.
* Variety of communicators More than two communicators. This excludes database queries and interactions.
* Virtual common-public-space where a significant portion of interactive group-CMCs occur This excludes private communications which go through no common space. Without this notion, the notion of virtual community loses its value because it is indistinguishable from many other forms of CMC.
* Minimum level of sustained membership

Caroline Haythornthwaite (2000) (10.1.06)

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Haythornthwaite, C., Kazmer, M. M., Robins, J. and Shoemaker, S. (2000)

Community development among distance learners: temporal and technological dimensions

JCMC, 6 (1)

Student quotes include this:

“I’ll have to tell you that it has been one of the most stressful times in my whole life… I started to have a lot of anxiety…. Just wondering if what I was posting sounded okay or if it sounded so bad… Finally I just had to take time off work.”

Another example of a very strong negative reaction to an online learning community.

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol6/issue1/haythornthwaite.html

Caroline Haythornthwaite (1998) (10.1.06)

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Haythornthwaite, C. (1998)

A social network study of the growth of community among distance learners

Information Research, 4, 1

* Communication frequency is associated with the maintenance of more relations and the use of more media.
* Patterns of media use are highly influenced by the media established by the instructor for class interaction
* Email is important for pairs who communicate more often.
* Actor positions in collaborative work, exchanging advice and socialising relations are similar, but this position does not correlate with their position in an emotional support network.
* Different actors are involved in the emotional support network than in other networks
* Group interaction patterns become less flexible over time.
* An individual’s perception of their own sense of belonging to the class is most strongly correlated with their centrality in exchanging advice networks.

http://informationr.net/ir/4-1/paper49.html

Social network theory (10.1.06)

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This is an analytical approach I could consider using. It might be useful for Gill as well?

Social network theory holds that behaviour is affected more by the kinds of ties and networks in which people are involved than by the norms and attributes that individuals possess. It examines patterns of ties to see what patterns emerge from their interactions.

In social network terms, pairs maintain relations (such as working together or friendship) and ties (a bond between two people based on one or more relations). The more relations a pair maintains, and the more frequently or intensely they maintain them, the stronger or closer the tie.

Pair-level bonding contributes to the sense of belonging to a group that is necessary to sustain the group as an entity rather than as a set of individuals. Feelings of belonging and community lead to greater commitment of group efforts, greater co-operation and greater satisfaction with group efforts.

One measure of an individual’s place in a network is their centrality – how well they are positioned to receive and disseminate information to all other members of the network. A star has access to information circulating the entire network, can influence others and the flow of information. The other end of the scale is isolation. The isolate does not maintain connections and thus does not receive communications. They can be cut off from information or receive it late.

Centrality can be measured by counting the number of others with whom an actor maintains relations. Can also be measured by closeness – the distance from each person to each other person. Central actors are closer to all others than are other actors. This means they are more likely to hear information available on the network. A third measure is betweenness, the extent to which an actor is situated between others (so information must pass through them to get to others). These measures assume communication flow along the shortest path. You can gauge centrality in a more complex fashion by looking at all the routes information can take and weighting them.

Chidambaram and Bostrom (1997) reviewed the literature and suggested that a well-developed group is cohesive, manages conflict effectively, balances tasks and socio-emotional needs. A well developed group may be judged by its outcomes.

Groups do not emerge fully developed. They begin their association, develop, experience crises, attend to deadlines, execute their tasks and conclude their association. They get to know each other and their technologies over time, learning how to interact with each other and how to use technologies in an appropriate manner. They develop, defining and redefining their network structures.

Successful communities (18.11.05)

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I had this under another entry, but it became a major issue, so I’ve moved it to its own posting.

Interesting about Ostrom is that she is looking at successful communities. What makes a learning community successful? Its learners are inspired? All learners construct some knowledge? Knowledge is constructed? All students pass the course? All students get good grades? I guess it’s possible for a learning community to be successful in its designers’ terms (student retention is excellent and grades are good) and in students’ terms (workload is not too high and grades are good) without it being successful in terms of being a generic learning community (eg information is shared but little or no knowledge construction goes on). I suppose in that case it would be a successful community but not a successful learning community.

So, does the OU definitely want learning communities? Say they started a FirstClass conference and it really got on to something and constructed a whole new theory BUT this overwhelmed students and a lot of them just gave up, would this be a successful learning community? Would the OU be happy with this?

I guess the OU has its own agenda, and wants to promote certain types of learning communities, which are open and inclusive. After all, Oxbridge has been successful in creating elitist learning communities where lots of knowledge is constructed by lots of people are being excluded.

So, it looks as though there are different types of learning community. The OU, I guess, wants inclusive learning communities which empower all students to learn (and, as a sub-text, aid retention and grades).

Design principles (18.11.05)

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Back in 1994, Mike Godwin drew up these principles for making virtual communities work:
* use software that promotes good discussion
* Don’t impose a length limitation on postings
* Front-load your system with talkative, diverse people
* Let the users resolve their own disputes
* Provide institutional memory
* Promote continuity
* Be host to a particular interest group
* Provide places for children
* Confront the users with a crisis.
It would be interesting to see whehter anyone took these principles and ran with them. Do users resolve their own disputes, or do they leave? What are the benefits of including children in a community? What diffeence does it make to a community when you impose a word limit on postings?

In general, I think this old (9!) stuff tends to be irrelevant. So much has changed. Users, software, designers are all more sophisticated. Do Godwin’s principles have more than historical interest?

Gill commented:
All very good guidelines. However, in view of the results of your U800 survey (in which many of your respondents felt intimidated by the online conferences and thought that they were a vehicle for the more confident students to brag about their TMA scores amongst other things – hope I’ve paraphrased correctly) I now begin to wonder about the frontloading with talkative diverse people aspect.

It seems like a double-edged sword. If you do not have talkative diverse people, then the conference will die through lack of use. If you have a core of talkative diverse people, there are bound to be some who feel intimidated.

My experience (as one of the talkative diverse people that got front-loaded onto H806) was that the collaborative activities where we were split into quite small groups, helped the less confident to grow in confidence. Many of the non VLE based courses, i.e. those where collaboration online is not an assessed part of the course, may suffer because the quieter members have no impetus to get over their fear and gain confidence.

From the responses to your survey that you described to me, many people felt excluded from the online interactions and therefore felt no desire to join in.

I guess what I’m saying is that you need some activities that oblige all students to join in at the start. Just making the online conferences available with a group of chatty members in the hope that all will make use of it may not work too well.
Comment from euphloozie – 26/11/05 12:22

Design rinciples (18.11.05)

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Now I’m reading a piece by Peter Kollock. I think it was a conference paper, as it’s quite short. He looks at theories of community which could be applied to internet communities.

Looking at them, I think i shows that the theory was generally wrong – these aren’t guidelines for all types of community as they don’t fit virtual communities.

So, communities and virtual communities are different. OK, nothing very surprising there.

He looks at Axelrod’s requirements for the possibility of cooperation. I don’t know how widely cited these are – but I can pick holes in them after about 10 seconds’ thought, so I’ll ignore those.

Then he looks at Ostrom’s design principles of successful communities:
* Group boundaries are clearly defined
* Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and conditions
* Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules
* the right of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities
* A system for monitoring members’ behaviour exists; this monitoring is undertaken by the community members themselves
* A graduated system of sanctions is used
* Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.
These seem very democratic – I’m not sure a feudal community would work with this definition. In fact, I think ‘most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules’ is the most problematic. Would this work in a convent, a tyranny, a primary school..?

They’re interesting considerations, but I don’t think I’d taken them as the basis for setting up a FirstClass conference.

Ruth Brown response (18.11.05)

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Ruth got back to me fairly quickly and now I have a useful reference to follow up.

Hello Rebecca —

I’m glad that you found my research interesting. Yes, it was based on my
Ph.D. dissertation which is in the University of Nebraska at Lincoln
library. It is also available through ProQuest which can be found on the
internet. ProQuest can actually send you a digital version of my
dissertation.

No, I have not published anything lately on this topic. I’ve gotten
sidetracked by other interesting topics.

–Ruth
Ruth E. Brown, Ph.D.
associate professor

Contacting researchers: Ruth Brown (17.11.05)

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Why did I find it necessary to say I was a first year?

Dear Dr Brown,

I am a first-year PhD student in the UK, researching social presence and the development of online learning communities.

I have just finished reading your JALN article ‘The process of community-building in distance learning classes’, which I found very interesting. I found the 15-step process of community building particularly helpful. I wondered whether you had published anything else on this subject? I haven’t been able to track any of your other publications down through our library – it isn’t always strong on publications from the US.

Was the article based on your PhD thesis and, if so, would I be able to access that?

Thank you for your help,
Rebecca Ferguson
Open University, UK

Contacting researchers: Burnett in Tallahassee (17.11.05)

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I’ve decided to make a point of emailing researchers when I have read their article and found it useful.

This was recommended in U500 last year, and seems like a good idea. Apart from the fact that they might get back to me with some useful ideas or references, it also helps me to fix their identities in my head, and to consider their ideas so that I can make a short comment to show I’ve read the article, and ask a meaningful question.

Here’s what I’ve sent to Gary Burnett:

Dear Gary,

I’m a PhD student in the United Kingdom researching virtual learning communities. I’ve just been reading your article ‘Information exchange in virtual communities: a typology’ in Information Research and found it very interesting. I now have a stack of articles from your bibliography piled up on my desk 🙂

You stated in the article that ‘…all interactions within a virtual community take place in public’ but you also cite Katz, who argues that the public interactions within a virtual community are just the tip of the iceberg and that much of the most useful information exchange goes on in private, in one-to-one email exchanges. I wondered if you had considered including such interactions within your typology or if you felt them too inaccessible to be classified?

Regards
Rebecca Ferguson
Open University

Anesa commented:
Did you get any reply from him?? Was wondering if I should do this … but thought I should only ask them if I really thought I wanted a clarification. Did you want a clarification or did you think up just a question to get into contact with him?
Comment from anesahosein – 01/12/05 16:33