Defining Online Community
For the purposes of my project, I am working largely from Preece’s (2000) definition of an online community, which denotes 4 components that an essential for a group to achieve the status of an online community.
These 4 components are as follows (Preece, 2000, p3):
- Socially interacting people striving to satisfy their own needs;
- A shared purpose like an interest or need that provides a reason to cooperate;
- Policies in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, or rules that guide the community members’ behavior; and
- A technical system that works as a carrier that mediates social interaction.
The work of Dellarocas (2006) and Leidner et al. (2010) highlights that online communities also offer spaces for businesses, customers, and employees to collaborate.
Subsequently, my definition of an online community is: A space hosted on the internet, connecting people with common interests to serve a mutual goal.
I wish to note that the focus of the Nature In community to be online is predominately to allow the community to reach as many people from as many different countries, backgrounds, and ethnicities as possible. In future plans, there may be in-person community meetings, either through in-person talks and panel discussions or through natural events. However, such plans will fall beyond the scope of this master’s project.
Online Community Building
The work of Reheingold (2000) explores how online communities typically follow their own set of rules in terms of their growth patterns and building. Each community expands in its own organic way, which can be hard to predict.
Key principles can be applied to most online communities, but they require the application of interpersonal skills, intuition, and improvisation to be truly successful (Bowes, 2002). See the ‘building online communities for professionals’ section below to explore these principles more.
Building Member Attachment and Commitment in Online Communities
The works of Ren et al., (2012) offers a systematic breakdown of different attachment style to groups, as well as exploring possible design features that can help to increase attachment.
(Critique) – Although these works are informative, it is largely theoretical and conceptual rather than practical which isn’t helpful in looking at how to initially build and form the community. Perhaps this works may be of more use when the community is larger and beginning to be more established.
I found the book ‘Building Successful Online Communities’ (Kraut and Resnick, 2012) much more useful and informative in how to build committed community members, which can ultimately make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful online community. Committed members are much more active within the groups, engaging more and drawing other members to get involved.
3 key types of commitment regarding online communities:
- Affective commitment – feelings of closeness to group members
- Normative commitment – feelings of obligations to the group
- Need-based/ Continuance commitment – centered around incentives in the group and the quality of alternatives avalaible to the group increasing the costs of leaving
These attachments together determine how long and how committed people are within a community group.
(Critique) – Kraut and Resnick (2012) offer evidence-based ideas and easily implemented ways in which to build and also increase attachment, which will be very useful when growing the Nature In Community. For instance, the book offers examples of emails/ messages sent out to communities and picks out the key aspects to replicate to build trust, attachment, and commitment between your community members.
Knowledge Exchange in Online Communities
Law and Chang (2008) unpack knowledge fostering in communities under a social capital building framework. They explore the role of technology to build social capital through their 4 pillars of identity profiling, sub-community building, feedback mechanism, and regulatory practice and this social capital is then thought to be utilised to drive the contribution of knowledge into the community
For the purpose of the Nature In the community, I am looking to foster new knowledge between community members through collaboration and discussion, as well as exchanging knowledge to increase understanding and intelligence on topics amongst the community.
Faraj et al. (2011) demonstrate the power and use of online communities, as they allow knowledge exchange between apparent strangers often even without direct conversation. They argue it is the fluidity of online communities that dictates the success of passing knowledge in and out of the community. Fluctuations in the fluidity of factors such as time, identity, and social disembodiment of ideas can allow for opportunities in knowledge collaborations in response to the change of these factors.
(Critique)- Faraj et al. (2011) offer a strong theory for how knowledge exchange can occur and why, alongside examples of this. But there is little scope for how to artificially create these exchanges within the community. The theory is based around the change in interaction factors offering the opportunity for collaboration; thus, suggesting one or more of the factors would have to be manipulated for the opportunities to be artificially manufactured and stimulate knowledge exchange, but there are no given ideas of how to do this.
Building Online Communities for Professionals
The work of Bowes (2002) is hugely informative on the topic of forming a professional online community, as I am aiming to do with the Nature In Community. However, in the instance of Bowes the focus is on creating a professional community for educational professionals and looks to provide support and development rather than knowledge sharing and collaboration.
It is suggested to employ welcome messages for newcomers to the group to make them feel welcomed and nurtured, alongside the offering of a weekly or monthly newsletter (Bowes and Williams, 2000).
A balance between Ad hoc and structured activity is recommended to ensure community members have the opportunity for flowing discussion but the motives of the group remain clear and structured. This concept alines with my plans for Nature In, to post stimuli for collaboration and conversations between members, as well as informative content (Bowes, 2002).
Structured activities such as online guest events are outlined to include external knowledge in the community. In regards to Nature In, this is already something I am employing through my Panel Discussions and so I am very pleased to discover this is academically proven to aid the progression of my community (Bowes, 2002).
Bowes (2002) suggests professional online communities benefit from occasional face-to-face encounters/ meetings. This is in keeping with some of my future plans for the Nature in community and so in discovering this academic base for the decision, which corroborates my intervention findings, I will be sure to action this.
Summary of Learning:
- My working definition of online community: A space hosted on the internet, connecting people with common interests to serve a mutual goal. Based on the work of Preece, (2000), Dellarocas (2006) and Leidner et al. (2010).
- Building committed members is crucial to a online communities sucess
- Committed and attached members are developed through: building commitment and trust between those wanting to stay in a group, encourgaing identity based attachemnet via a set of shared ideals, reducing forces that may undercut comittment such as feeling of disconnect in larger groups (Kraut and Resnick, 2012).
- Knowledge exchange can occur in online communities from the fluctuation of variables such as time, identity and social disembodiment of ideas provding the opportuntiy for collaboration (Faraj et al., 2011)
- Nuture members and new comers through welcome messages and monthly newsletters (Bowes, 2002)
- To encourage community interaction and growth through implement a balance of ad hoc and strcutured content posting, offering organised events within the group (Bowes, 2002)
- Host some in perosn events as well as online, so that community members can meet if tehy wish (Bowes, 2002)
Reflections
In conducting this literature review around community building I have formed a clear base of knowledge around communities to work from and a framework in which to begin building and growing the online community of Nature In.
Bibliography
Bowes, J., (2002). ‘Building online communities for professional networks.’ Global Summit of Online Knowledge Networks, Adelaide, Australia.
Bowes, J. and Williams, M. (2000), Building the VECO Online Community – a model for encouraging novices. National Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 25, number 1, Pp 60-72
Dellarocas, C., (2006). ‘Strategic manipulation of internet opinion forums: Implications for consumers and firms.’ Management science, 52(10), pp.1577-1593.
Faraj, S., Jarvenpaa, S.L. and Majchrzak, A., (2011). ‘Knowledge collaboration in online communities.’ Organization science, 22(5), pp.1224-1239.
Kraut, R.E. and Resnick, P., (2012). Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design. Mit Press.
Law, S.P.M. and Chang, M.K., (2008). ‘Fostering knowledge exchange in online communities: a social capital building approach.’
Leidner, D., Koch, H. and Gonzalez, E., (2010). ‘Assimilating Generation Y IT New Hires into USAA’s Workforce: The Role of an Enterprise 2.0 System.’ MIS Quarterly Executive, 9(4).
Preece, J. (2000). ‘Online communities: Designing usability and supporting sociability.’ Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Ren, Y., Harper, F.M., Drenner, S., Terveen, L., Kiesler, S., Riedl, J. and Kraut, R.E., (2012.) ‘Building member attachment in online communities: Applying theories of group identity and interpersonal bonds.’ Mis Quarterly, pp.841-864.
Rheingold, H. (2000). ‘The virtual community: Homestead- ing on the electronic frontier’ (rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.