Group Behavior and Learning in Electronic Forums: A Sociotechnical Approach

Kling, Rob; Courtright, Christina

doi:10.1080/01972240309465

Cited by 147 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Examples of these groups include math and science teachers [23], healthcare professionals [28], lawyers [29], and Caterpillar employees [30]. More recently, a few researchers [27,31,32] took a critical approach to the study of online CoPs, and several analyses of multiple CoPs have emerged to move beyond descriptive accounts. For example, Hew & Hara [28] examined factors that motivate or hinder participants from engaging in knowledge sharing in multiple open online CoPs, and Dubé et al, [17] developed a typology of online CoPs within organizational settings.…”

Section: Research Background: Online Communities Of Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Online communities of practice typology revisited

Hara

Shachaf

Stoerger

2009

Journal of Information Science

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This paper outlines a typology for online communities of practice. The typology is based on findings from observations of three online communities of practice, a content analysis of messages, and a review of the existing literature. The three examples of communities of practice are of electronic discussion lists that cover topics of interest to university webmasters, librarians, and educators. This work expands on a typology that consolidated prior research and focused on online communities of practice within organizational settings (Dubé, Bourhis, and Jacob, 2006) by extending it to be inclusive of open online communities of practice that are not constrained by any organizational context. Characterizing communities of practice in this manner enables various aspects of them to be analyzed, which can illuminate ways to support the implementation of effective online communities of practice for specific purposes.

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Section: Research Background: Online Communities Of Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Online communities of practice typology revisited

Hara

Shachaf

Stoerger

2009

Journal of Information Science

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“…Several scholars argue that online communities evolve in stages (e.g. [2,10,11,16,22]), and that each stage has distinct characteristics, that must be taken into consideration for community building efforts. In line with this notion is the idea that to successfully advance from the creation / inception stage to maturity requires the gaining of a critical mass of users (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An empirical study of critical mass and online community survival

Raban

Moldovan

Jones

2010

Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

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There is general consensus that critical mass at inception ensures the sustained success of online communities. However, no clear understanding of what constitutes such a 'critical mass' exists and too few quantitative studies have been conducted into the relationship between initial online community interaction and its longer term success to draw any conclusions. In this paper we start to address this gap through a large-scale study of the relationship between IRC chat channel survival and initial chat channel community interactions. A sample 282 chat channel births was used for survival analysis which explored the relationship between the overall user activity in each channel at its inception and the channel's life expectancy. Significant relationships were observed between online community lifespan and critical mass measures: 1) message volume, 2) user population heterogeneity and 3) production functions. The results lend support to the Critical Mass Theory of collective action.

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“…Their expectations of knowledge contributors' ability and benevolence are likely to be more realistic and accurate. Newcomers, however, may have an overly sanguine view of an eNoP (Kling and Courtright 2003), which subsequently leads to higher expectations of the community overall and the knowledge contributors in particular. Thus newcomers can be more trusting than old-timers in eNoPs:…”

Section: Situation-based Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trust in Electronic Networks of Practice: An Integrative Model

Zhang

2007

Communities and Technologies 2007

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Group Behavior and Learning in Electronic Forums: A Sociotechnical Approach

Cited by 147 publications

References 28 publications

Online communities of practice typology revisited

Online communities of practice typology revisited

An empirical study of critical mass and online community survival

Trust in Electronic Networks of Practice: An Integrative Model

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