Introduction: Virtual Communities

Part 1: Fundamentals of Virtual Communities (Leimeister, Rajagopalan)

Introduction

April 22, 2020

• Virtual communities (VC) grew with the emergence of the World Wide Web
• VC = online community
• Every discipline has their own studies of VCs used in their disciplinary practices
• VC = “computer-mediated spaces where there is a potential for an integration of content and communication with an emphasis on member-generated content”
• VCs consist of:
  1. People (community)
  2. Shared purpose (domain)
  3. Policies (practice)
  4. Computer systems (not in traditional CoP texts)
• Online social networks = format of VC
• Ubiquitous access to community when it’s online
• Supports socialization and identity
• Members have a sense of community (SoC) in VCs
• Sense of community = concept not in traditional CoPs?; it’s like a layer within membership

Problem Situations and Target Groups that VCs Address

• Success of social networks = growing importance of VCs; there is a need to improve VC design and study how people behave in VCs
• Success is determined by people’s contributions
• Opportunities for research in this field:
  • Relationships between different motivations
  • Usage and success of VCs for different stakeholders
  • Differences in user motivation across cultures

Design of Virtual Communities

• VC space should provide features for a specific audience and allow scalability
• Ex. FB has specific features for subgroups
• There can be features for: young/cold, active/lurkers, new/experienced, long term / short term, etc.
• “Wisdom of the crowds”
• Tighter methods of communication benefit users and the VCs
• Contributors with the most expertise tend to lack technical proficiency in using VCs, so VCs need to be easy-to-use

Deployment and Use of VCs

• There is no formal management of practice in VCs
• Management of VCs are often kept hidden as it is not of interest to users
• “VC operator” = community coordinator
• Each VC has its own way of managing; this is something to explore for any UX VCs I identify in my research

Evaluation of Virtual Communities

• There is no one way to measure success—success of VC depends on the context
• Conceptual model for studying VCs:

• This conceptual model’s arrows ask how does x influence y?
• In order to understand KM of UX designers, it will be good hear in their own words how a VC is designed, and how they see themselves as a (contributing or lurking) member