IHC handbook chapter 30 - Online communities

1. Online Communities
THE HCI HANDBOOK
CHAPTER 30
Panayiotis Zaphiris, Chee Siang Ang, Andrew Laghos

2. CMC & Online communities
Computer mediated communication
“the process by which people create, exchange and
perceive information using networked
telecommunications systems to facilitate encoding,
transmitting and decoding messages”
December
ACMC SCMC

3. CMC & Online communities
Online communities
Multidisciplinary nature
Social aggregation
Long enough public discussions
Sufficient human feelings
Web personal relationships
Rheingold

4. CMC & Online communities
Examples
Audio / video conferencing
MUDs
Wiki-based communities
e-mail
www
Online virtual game communities
Social network walls

5. Analyzing Online Communities
Frameworks and Methodologies
Query-based techniques and user profiles
interviews, questionnaires and personas
Log analysis
Content and Textual analysis
Social Network Analysis (SNA)

6. Analyzing Online Communities
Frameworks and Methodologies
Content and Textual analysis – TAT:
 Questioning  vertical and horizontal
 Statements  nonreferential and referential
 Reflections
 Scaffolding and engaging
 References  quotations/references to/paraphrases OR
 Citations/attributions of quotations/paraphrases

7. Analyzing Online Communities
Frameworks and Methodologies
SNA – units of analysis:
Nodes Relations
Ties Multiplexity
Composition Range
Centrality Roles
Density Reachability
Distance cliques

8. Case studies
CALL communities
Learn Greek Online (LGO)
Analysis of the discussions of the first 50 students
Quantitative + Qualitative techniques:
SNA tool  NetMiner to measure centrality
Survey  ATTLS to collect subjective data

9. Case studies
Game communities
Types:
single game-play community  THE SIMMS, FINAL
FANTASY
social game-play community  multiplayer games in
the same location (in-game and out-of-game)
distributed game-play community  multiplayer games
(multiple) sessions in different locations

10. Case studies
Activity Theory  Leont’ev
Constructionist activities  Papert
Socio constructivism  Vygotsky
Triangle model of activity system Engestrom
tool
object
DOL
subject
rules
community