Analisi e progettazione di un’iniziativa di comunicazione per il potenziamento della community di itsme

Analisi e progettazione di
un’iniziativa di comunicazione per
il potenziamento della community
di itsme (PREVIEW dic 2010)

a cura di David Carollo

lunedì 21 dicembre 2009

Chapters

• Theorical Background
• Itsme community analysis
• Itsme website analysis
• Advertising strategies


Theorical Background


Theorical background

• Itsme project

• Oss

• Community


Itsme project
• All the user interfaces of the personal computers of the present days are
based on the desktop metaphor, i.e., on an analogy with the physical work-
place. However, that metaphor reﬂects the complexity of human activities
without helping people to manage it.

• We propose a new way of presenting information in venues, i.e., according to
the context in which objects are generated, or needed. We envision the
design of a new generation of workstations, built (from the core) around the
metaphor of stories and venues to substitute the desktop one.

... / Theorical background / Itsme project


Itsme project
Let us point out three of the main limitations of the present-day personal computers, provided
with a user interface built on the desktop metaphor:

• filling the desktop with all the objects users create, find or receive during their everyday
actions and interactions generates an amount of confusion that some people try to manage by
filing items in different folders. This method does not solve the problem, since the content is
hidden by folders, which also have names that become obscure with time;

• the two major internet applications – email and the Web – store their objects (e.g., messages,
bookmarks, cached pages) in two other distinct places so there is no contiguity with other
information;

• the file systems of the most popular operating systems neither allow to quickly tag objects
(with one click only) or to cross-link them, nor to make their inner structure visible to other
objects, like XML does for the web.



Design & Development
• Like the desktop metaphor started spreading when the Macintosh hit the market in 1984, the new
metaphor of stories and venues is being developed for, and is going to be launched with a dedicated
workstation, called itsme. ITSME is also a company started in March 2008 as a spin-off of the
University of Milano-Bicocca to practically develop the research plan. The ﬁrst prototype release of
this new workstation is scheduled for Spring 2010.

• As it can be easily understood, itsme is a rather ambitious and risky project from many viewpoints.
First of all, we are trying to create something radically new in a vast and in some sense mature
worldwide market: its chances to be successful depend therefore, besides the quality of the machine
we are designing, upon our capacity of reaching and attracting a large number of people from all over
the world. Secondly, even if and when the users of existing workstations are not satisﬁed by the
computers available on the market, what we propose with itsme is going beyond what they request in
terms of workstation innovation: we need, therefore, to convince them that itsme has great value for
them and that switching to its new paradigm is not a heavy cost.

• itsme is a challenge, we are facing barriers that are not easy to overcome: the same cure we dedicate
to the design of its software and hardware must be paid to its communication plans and to its
development strategy. We consider these last issues of our endeavor as an integral part of the design
we have to do: on one hand, we are trying to keep a strict coherence between what we design and
how we implement it, and, on the other, between our industrial plans and our communication strategy.



Stories & Venues
• Everything users do is in the context of the different stories they live with other people (sometimes,
alone). Any of these stories is populated with all the items (objects of different types, people’s
addresses, relevant URL’s, exchanged messages) created or imported during their experience and
users need to have this information readily available, in the venues within which they are acting or
interacting. A previous research on the language/Action perspective claiming the importance of
conversations, forms the bases of the proposed metaphor

• A conversation deﬁnes a context that is represented by a venue;

• Venues aggregate related objects, that should then be managed all together, being the constituents of a context;

• New venues are created as new conversations begin, from scratch (i.e., by replying to a new message) or spinning
off existing ones (e.g., when the topic of a conversation changes or multiplies);

• Users can modify venues sorting the objects they contain, merging different venues, creating sub-venues, deleting
them (different policies can be characterised), and so on

• Objects only exist within a venue: an object can be accessed through replicated references, if it is referred by
different conversations.



Stories & Venues



An OS project
• Both the fact that we are developing a new workstation for a particular class of users (other users may be satisfied
by other workstations, both adopting the desktop metaphor or not) and the fact that we want to develop it in
collaboration with the users, listening to their needs and desires and conversing with them on our design choices,
has brought us to choose the Linux operating system as the basis of the system implementing the ‘stories and
venues’ metaphor. This choice has several advantages: first, it allows us to concentrate our efforts on the front-end
of our system and on the layer connecting it with Linux core, since its open-source software allows the
development of new features and functions on top of it; secondly, being other major workstation front-ends based
on Linux, we can keep the openness and interoperability of our software at its maximum, granting to our users the
capability to interact with other people, who are not using itsme; third, it allows us to develop itsme within the large
open source community, discussing within it all the technical issues arising from our design and development
process and trying to push it towards innovation so that Linux becomes always more capable (e.g., augmenting the
file system with tags, and links) to be the basis for radical changes at the workstation level (e.g., new office suites
and applications, new interaction protocols).

• In fact, the itsme system is going to be deployed as a Linux distribution with a peculiar front end that will exploit a
set of characteristic services: in particular, with a novel graphical user interface relying on and allowing to describe
the relationships between the various kinds of objects in the file system (e.g., email messages, documents, contact
details). itsme will represent a radical innovation and carry a significant contribution (in terms both of technology
and of presence of practitioners) to the existing community.



An OS project
• The afﬁliation of itsme to the Open Source scene goes beyond the adoption of Linux development as a
platform: one of the slogans with which the itsme concept is currently being demonstrated is “let’s team
up” meaning that the involvement of people in the project is perceived to be essential. Itsme has its
technical staff (in January 2009, 8 people) but we are also involving other people in the design and
development of the software: e.g., we are establishing a collaboration with various open source projects
to co-develop parts of the system, and we are involving the development team of a Linux distribution.
Coupling user participation in the design process through the concept evaluation and similar initiatives
with the above recalled enlargements of the development team, we are seeking to create a community
having itsme and its creation at its center.

• These ideas basically translate to three aspects:

1. The constitution of a community following and providing directions for the project, implementing participatory design;

2. The search for contributions from outside the company: new ideas, concepts, visual design components, and code. Community
members are also being involved in the evaluation of ideas and the validation of design products;

3. Community members are helping us to generate hype on what we are doing, and on the (long disregarded) issues that we are trying
to solve. People are helping us to create the market before the real workstation is ready to be sold. In this way, itsme is going to be the
fulcrum for the innovation in consumer applications such as productivity tools, web-based and email-based applications.



Os deﬁnition
• Open source describes practices in production and development that
promote access to the end product's source materials—typically, their
source code. Some consider it as a philosopy, and others consider it as a
pragmatic methodology. Before open source became widely adopted,
developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the
concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the
Internet and its enabling of diverse production models, communication
paths, and interactive communities. Subsequently, open source software
became the most prominent face of open source practices.

... / Theorical background / Oss


OSI
• The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation formed to
educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build
bridges among different constituencies in the/ open-source community.
... / Theorical background Oss

• One of our most important activities is as a standards body, maintaining the
Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The Open Source
Initiative Approved License trademark and program creates a nexus of trust
around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize
open-source cooperation.



OS definition by OSI
• Free redistribution - the license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component
of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not
require a royalty orother fee for such sale.

• Source code - the program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as
compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-
publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost–preferably,
downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer
would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the
output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.

• Derived works - the license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed
under the same terms as the license of the original software.

• Integrity of the author's source code - the license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form
only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the
program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code.
The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.

• No discrimination against persons or groups - the license must not discriminate against any person or group of
persons.



OS definition by OSI
• No discrimination against fields of endeavour - the license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program
in a specific field of endeavour. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from
being used for genetic research.

• Distribution of license - the rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed
without the need forexecution of an additional license by those parties.

• License must not be specific to a product - the rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's
being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or
distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have
the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

• The license must not restrict other software - the license must not place restrictions on other software that is
distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs
distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.



Elements of OSS ideology

• Norms

• Beliefs

• Values



Norms
• Forking - there is a norm against forking a project, which refers to splitting
the project into two or more projects developed separately

• Distribution - there is a norm against distributing code changes without going
through the proper channels

• Named Credit - there is a norm against removing someone’s name from a
project without that person’s consent.



Beliefs
• Code Quality - open source development methods produce better code than
closed source

• Freedom - outcomes are better when information, especially code, is freely
available

• Bug ﬁxing – The more people working on the code, the more quickly bugs
will be found and ﬁxed.

• Practicality - practical work is more useful than theoretical discussion

• Status Attainment - Status is achieved through community recognition



Values
• Sharing - sharing information is important.

• Helping - aiding others is important.

• Technical knowledge - Technical knowledge is highly valued.

• Learning - there is a value on learning for its own sake.

• Cooperation - voluntary cooperation is important.

• Reputation - reputation gained by participating in open source projects is
valuable.



3 types of OSS projects

• ﬁjrifjipjre

From: Kishida K., Nakakoji K., Nishinaka Y. & Ye Y., Evolution patterns of Open-Source Software System and Community, 2002.



Exploration-oriented

• This type of OSS, aims at pushing the frontline of software development collectively through the
sharing of innovations embedded in freely shared OSS systems. This is very much similar to the culture
of scientific research community in which scientific results are shared through conferences and
journals for peer justification, mutual inspkation, and continued development.

• In the world of software, source code, which is the embodiment of its developer's understanding of
the real world or innovative ways of changing and designing the world through soft-ware systems, is
the scientific results to be shared. Due to its free access, it can spark the ideas of other developers so
that something new may grow that otherwise would not have been born, and it enables others to go
further by stepping on the shoulders of the previous developer through reusing the open solace code.



Utility-oriented
• This type of OSS aims at filling a void in functionality. Most of such OSS systems consist of many
relatively independent OSS programs and those OSS programs are developed because the original
developers cannot find an existing program that fulfills their needs completely. Rather than waidng for
others m provide the needed functionality, capable software developers decide to develop their own
systems and put it on the web for others to shale.

• OSS programs in Utility-Oriented OSS projects are completely developed from scratch. Most
developers search the lntemet for a partial solution and then modify it to their own needs. Their
primary concern is not to use the source code as a way of scientific exploration as the Exploration-
Oriented OSS developers do, but to create a program that can solve theirpersonal needs, or
scratching their personal itch.

• Because the development is motivated by an, often emergent, practical need, timeliness is of essential
importance. Moreover, because the development is driven by an individual need, developers are
concerned with developing an operational system rather than delivering a refined solution as in the
Exploration-Oriented type.



Service-oriented
• This type of OSS aims at providing stable and robust services to all the stakeholders of OSS systems.
We use the term stakeholder to refer to both the member of the OSS community who uses the
system and the end-user whose work relies on thesystem developed by OSS community members
with the OSS system.

• In a Service-Oriented OSS system, because the population of stakeholders is much larger than that of
the OSS community, any changes made to the system have to be carefully considered so that they do
not disrupt its provided services on which many endusers rely on. Therefore. Service-Oriented OSS is
usually very conservative against evolutionary and rapid changes. in accordance with its conservative
nature, the control style of Service-Oriented OSS is often collectively controlled by a group of Core
Members, and there is no single Project Leader, Any changes are subject to debate in the group and
only the changes that won the majority of the group arc incorporated.

• Most members of Service-Oriented OSS communities exist as Passive Users, with some of them may
become Bug Reporters and Bug Fixers as they report or submit bug ﬁxes back to the Core Members
(Council).



Determinants of open source project software
• Success in OSS projects is better understood by examining the development environment which is more publicly visible.
Scholars have proposed measures such as project activity levels, release of newfeatures, and the time taken to fix software
bugs. Since OSS projects rely on voluntary input, the ability of a project to attract the interest of and contributions from
the developers is a key success measure. OSS is not just about developing or modifying software. Increasingly more non-
developer users are relying on open source software for personal and business needs, and the interest shown by these
users for open source software may be an important indicator of the project's success. This interest can be measured by
the traffic on the OSS project website and the extent of downloads of the software code. The various success measures
for OSS projects focus on the project activity and the interest of the main beneficiaries — developers and non-developer
users.

• Hence, we use developer interest, user interest, and project activity levels as the three measures of OSS success in our
model. In addition, these three measures are more readily available from a single source (Sourceforge.net) for thousands of
OSS projects for many months, which facilitate our longitudinal study show that the user-interest in a particular time
period is correlated with the project activity in the subsequent time period and propose that project activity in a prior
period mightspur developer interest in the following period, though this specific relationship was not tested. Hence, we
believe that all three measures of project success are inter-related and include these interrelationships in our model.

• There are two broad categories of factors which impact OSS project success — time-invariant factors related to the OSS
project and timedependent project characteristics. The OSS project attributes that are incorporated in our model have
been identified in literature as affecting the development and use of OSS. These project attributes are — (a) OSS license ;
and (b) Interest shown by developers and non-developer users in an OSS .We also include the operating system and
programming language of the OSS in our model because these factors impact the participation of developers and users in
the OSS, and hence its success. Each factor and its effects on project success are discussed in detail below.



Determinants of open source project software

From: Nelson M.L., Subramaniam C. & Sen R., Determinants of open source software project success: A longitudinal study, Elsevier,
2008.



OSS roles members
• Passive Users just use the system in the same way as most of us use commercial soRwarc; they are
attracted to OSS mainly due to its high quality and the potential of being changed when needed.

• Readers arc active users of the system; they not only use the system, but also try to understand how
the system works by reading the source code. Readers are like peer reviewers in traditional software
development organizations.

• Bug Reporters discover and report bugs; they do not ﬁx the bugs themselves, and they may not mad
souse code either. They assume the same role as rosters of the traditional software development
moclel.

• Bug Fixers ﬁx the bug that is either discovered by themselves or reported by Bug Reporters. Bug
Fixers have to read and understand a small portion of the source code of the system where the bug
occurs.

• Peripheral Developers contribute occasionally new functionality or features to the existing system. Their
conlribution is irregular, and the period of involvement is short and sporadic.



OSS roles members
• Active Developer. Active Developers regularly contribute new features and ﬁx bugs; they arc one of the
major development forges of OSS systems.

• Core Member, Core Members arc responsible for guiding and coordinating the development elan OSS
project. Core Members are those people who haw been involved with the project for a relative long time
and have made signiﬁcant conllibutions to the devvlopmcnt and evolution of the system. In some OSS
communities, they arc aJso called Maintainers.

• Project Leader. Project Leader is often the person who has initiated the project. He or she is responsible
for the vision and overall dircction of the project.

Not all of the eight types of roles exist in all OSS communities, and the percentage of each type varies.
Each OSS community may have different names for the above roles.



General structure of OSS

From: Kishida K., Nakakoji K., Nishinaka Y. & Ye Y., Evolution patterns of Open-Source Software System and Community, 2002.



DeLone & McLean success model

... / Theorical background / Community


Community
• Community - a group of people who come together for a common purpose,interest or goal.

• Learning Community - a group of individuals engaged intentionally and collectively in the transaction, or
transformation of knowledge” (Kowch &Schwier 1997 quoted in Grozdanic & Weatherley 2001)

• Learning Network and Community Network - Wheeler (2001) provides a useful summary table
comparingattributes of these two types of initiatives. Community networks are typically grass roots
initiatives focused on public access to the Internet and the development of localcommunity content.
Learning networks are typically government initiatives focused on the provision of formal and informal
learning opportunities.

• Community of Practice - groups of people who share aconcern, a set of problems, or a passion about a
topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing
basis.” (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, quoted in Mitchell 2002)



Online community

• A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via
communication media such as newsletter, telephone, email, internet social network services or instant
messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. If the
mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community.Virtual and online communities have
also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily
in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based
chat rooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Signiﬁcant socio-technical change may
have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks.



Research in different disciplines

• From 1993 to 2007, research on online communities grew inwaves of overlapping stages
through the disciplines. For example, in the early 1990s, computer science contributed the
technological medium, the standards, and the mechanisms to facilitate online communication
and interactions. These technologies include the Internet and the Web as the platforms on
which communities developed. During subsequent years, many more applications such as
email, Usenets, discussion boards, chat rooms, electronic meeting rooms, Web logs, wikis,
and, more recently, multimedia technology and applications known as Web 2.0 were added.

• Innovation and advances in the availability and ease of use of this communication technology
led to the popularization of online communities and to the initiation of the ﬁrst wave of
research on online communities.



Research in different disciplines

From: Iriberri A. and Leroy G., A Life-Cycle Perspective on Online Community Success, 2009



First wave
• During the first wave, which started in 1993 when Howard Rheingold coined the term virtual community, sociology
took the lead focusing on online communities as asocial phenomenon capable of modifying how people interact in
society. Sociologists compared online communities to physical communities and explored the presence of various
community-related concepts such as social aggregations, identity, social networks and ties, and social and collective
action. They also studied the impacts of Internet use on individuals and society, such as social isolation, social
involvement, and well-being.

• For example, Wellman [2005] found that online communication can strengthen face-to-face communication in local
communities, as opposed to producing social isolation. Moreover, they found that online interactions can facilitate
accumulation of social capital which may enhance civil involvement. Those interested in the impact of online
communities on society found that by facilitating strong social relationships, trust, and reciprocity, an online
community may gather enough social capital to engage in social action to achieve a collective goal.

• Hampton proposed implementing mechanisms to encourage trust, such as discretionary levelsof anonymity, which
can help promote lasting relationships. Most recently, empirical studies have been carried out to test independent
success factors such as presence of content quality, interaction support, organization of online and offline events,
rewards for contributions, volunteerism, and posting of member pictures and profiles. The four waves of online
community research have produced an extensive and rich body of research that began with theoretical and
conceptual effort and has started to focus on empirical and theory testing activities. In this research, extensive
discussions on the definition, benefits, and classifications of online communities abound.



Second wave
• A second wave in research on online communities started around 1996 with management researchers
analyzing the value to business organizations of the content generated by online communities. Hagel
and Armstrong [1997] studied online communities as viable business models capable of attracting
customers who are searching for information on products or activities of interest to them, and who
want to ﬁnd and build relationships, conduct transactions, or live fantasies. They suggest that if
organizations provide mechanisms to identify and satisfy customer needs more accurately this can
then turn into proﬁt for vendors. When businesses provide the space for interaction, vendors can
strengthen customer loyalty and also extract customer information to further improve marketing and
customer service programs.

• Wegner et al. [2002] focused on online communities that emerge in business organizations and are
used by employees as repositories of organizational knowledge. In these communities of practice, the
knowledge created and stored by members contributes to the organization’s ability to solve
problems, create new products, innovate, and ultimately increase productivity [Millen et al. 2002]. This
is evident in the widespread use of wikis, electronic boards, and electronic meeting rooms where team
members in organizations add content and share online documents, thus reducing by one-half the time
it takes them to complete projects [Conlin 2005; Goodnoe 2006].



Third wave

• In the third wave of online community research, psychology researchers focused on
members’ relationships and attachments within online communities. Blanchard [2004] and
Blanchard and Markus [2004] studied sense of community including feelings of belonging,
safety, and attachment to the group. When these feelings are present, members develop
lasting relationships with other members, feel attachment to the community, and perceive
the online community as a source of social and emotional support. In one online community
of multisport athletes, Blanchard and Markus [2004] found that active participants develop
personal friendships that in some cases move into private and face-to-face interactions.



Fourth wave
• Last, in the fourth wave, information systems researchers integrated previous perspectives, developed
working definitions, and created research agendas to initiate a more focused and controlled empirical
study of online communities [Gupta and Kim 2004; Lee et al. 2003; Li 2004]. The focus shifted to
members’ needs and requirements, development of electronic tools to support online communities,
adoption and implementation of these tools, online communities for new purposes such as teaching
and, finally, outcome assessment [Arnold, et al. 2003; Kling and Courtright 2003; Stanoevska-Slabeva
and Schmid 2000, 2001]. For example, Stanoevska-Slabeva and Schmid [2001] described the activities
members conduct in online communities and matched those activities with the technology platform
capable of supporting those activities; and Arnold et al. [2003] presented a model to translate member
needs into technology requirements.

• In the latter years of this fourth wave, the focus of the information systems discipline moved toward
proposing conditions that would increase member participation and ensure online community
success. For example, Preece [2000] recommended following a participatory design approach, which
takes into consideration user needs, and establishing a clear purpose combined with policies of
behavior to govern the interactions of members. She referred to the fostering of “tacit assumptions,
rituals, protocols, rules, and laws” that define the community identity.



Fourth wave

• Similarly, Leimeister et al. [2005] proposed implementing mechanisms to encourage trust, such as
discretionary levels of anonymity, which can help promote lasting relationships. Most recently,
empirical studies have been carried out to test independent success factors such as presence of
content quality, interaction support, organization of online and ofﬂine events, rewards for
contributions, volunteerism, and posting of member pictures and proﬁles.

• The four waves of online community research have produced an extensive and rich body of research
that began with theoretical and conceptual effort and has started to focus on empirical and theory
testing activities.



Online community publications in
different ﬁelds




Sociology

• Sociologists have suggested modeling online communities after physical communities to ensure
success. In their recommendations, they used theories that explain identity, social interaction, and
social organizations. Kollock’s [1996] design principles for online communities and Wasko and Teigland
[2004] research agenda used theories on social dilemmas, cooperation, public commons, and collective
action. The most salient design principles resulting from their work are the incorporation of identity
persistence (i.e., the ability to recognize members by names), group boundaries (i.e., the ability to
differentiate rightful members), and permeated control (i.e., the ability to allow group members to
monitor and sanction members’ behaviors).



Management

• Business practitioners and management researchers have provided development strategies and focus
on the value of online communities to organizations. Kim [2000] contributed a set of nine strategies
and three design principles. Similarly, Cothrel and Williams [1999] contributed seven principles for
success based on an extensive study of 15 successful business online communities. These authors have
agreed on the importance of three conditions: focusing on the needs of users and explicitly indicating
that satisfying these needs is the purpose of the online community, providing support for individual
roles of members, such as moderators or experts, within the community, and facilitating the
organizations of online and ofﬂine activities or events. Furthermore, management researchers have
focused on creating successful business models to attract customers and enhance customer loyalty.



Psychology

• Psychology, human computer interaction, and computer-supported collaborative work researchers
study people’s motivations to participate in and contribute to online communities. Blanchard and
Markus [2004] applied theories of sense of community and emphasized the importance of having
facilitators to encourage discussions and reward members for their contributions, and ensuring
member’s legitimacy and persistent identity.

• Similarly, Beenen et al. [2004] highlighted the need to encourage contributions by explicitly
acknowledging members’ uniqueness of opinions.



Information system
• Information systems researchers reference these theories and propose frameworks for developing
successful online communities. Preece’s [2000] and Tedjmulia et al.’s [2005] frameworks stress the
importance of incorporating sociability-support and usable components in the design of online
communities. Sociability-support components include the existence of clear purpose, protocols, and
codes of behavior.

• Usability components include the ease of use with which users can ﬁnd information or the speed with
which users can navigate through the online community. Incorporating these conditions in the design
ensures the path to success. Tedjamulia et al. [2005] went further and encouraged the incorporation of
extrinsic reinforcements such as gifts, social recognition, and feedback to motivate online community
members to contribute actively to the community.



Success factors
• Leimeister and Sidiras [2004] compiled a list of 30 different success factors drawn from existing research in
information systems and other fields and ranked them according to importance from the perspective of
participants and operators. They found that participants and operators value in the first and second places the
ability of the online community to handle member data sensitively and the stability of the online community Web
site. Leimeister et al. [2005] empirically tested the impact on success of factors such as exposing the identity of
managers and content providers, clearly establishing their goals for the online community, making up-to-date and
expert-generated content available, making members’ profiles available for other members, and providing varying
levels of anonymity. They found that these components build trust among members and motivate continued
membership.

• Others are testing many other components such as rewards for contributions, assignment of administrative roles
to members, acknowledgment of members’ longevity, organization of online and offline public events, and posting of
member’s pictures and profiles, among others. The one factor researchers focused on most is member recognition
and rewards for contributions [Ginsburg and Weisband 2004; Andrews 2001; Andrews et al. 2001; Beenenet et al.
2004; Butleret et al. 2005; Chan 2004; Hall and Graham 2004; Hars and Ou 2002; Tedjamuliaet et al. 2005]. Providing
rewards for contributions seems to increase the number of messages posted by community members, making it
more active and more successful. The current volume of online community research is vast but findings related to
success are isolated.

• Online community designers face a myriad of design strategies and features with little guidance on how to
integrate these when building online community platforms.



Success factor as...




Success metrics
• In order for benefits to become available, an online community has to succeed. There are various ways to
define and measure success. The most common metrics used in the empirical research we reviewed were
volume of members’ contribution and quality of relationships among members. Researchers who focus on
measuring success agree that, the larger the volume of messages posted and the closer members feel to
each other, the more successful the online community becomes. In addition to contribution and quality of
relationships, metrics that are more precise are also advocated.

• Preece [2001b] identified a great number of success metrics and classified them into two groups: those
related to sociability and those related to usability. Sociability measures include number of participants,
number of messages per unit of time, member’s satisfaction, reciprocity, and trustworthiness. Usability
metrics include number of errors when using the interface, user productivity, and user satisfaction, among
others. She emphasized the importance of considering both categories in evaluating the success of online
communities.

• Although many different metrics could be used, most empirical studies used metrics that were either
quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative metrics include size (number of members), participation (number of
visits, hits, logins), contributions (number of messages posted per period), and relationship development
(extent of contact between members). For example, Ludford et al. [2004] measured the increase in the
volume of contributions in terms of the number of messages posted as a result of letting members know
how unique their contributions are, which in turn results in a more lively community.Size is a common and
often quoted measure of success.



Success metrics
• The common qualitative metrics of success are member satisfaction and quality of members’ relationships.
Zhang and Hiltz [2003] studied the impact of making members’ profiles and pictures available to the
community on how satisfied members are with being part of the community. They found that geographically
distant members enjoy and appreciate getting to know each other by viewing each other’s pictures and
reading each other’s profiles.

• Cummings et al. [2002] found that the quality of members’ relationships is lower in communities where
there is limited communication and high turnover. Thus, these researchers have stressed the need to focus
on increasing participation and maintaining a tightly knit community.

• The variety of metrics shows that success is a complex concept but also that it is an important variable to
measure. If researchers want to compare online communities, assess their outcomes and, more importantly,
measure the impact of adding design components to an online community, they will be focusing on these
success metrics.



Importance & benefits
• A great number of online community case studies have emphasized that many people are
drawn to the Internet for social interactions. When people become part of an online
community, they enjoy a wide variety of benefits.

• A first category of benefits are inherent benefits that come from forming a social group,
such as opportunities to exchange information, give and receive social and emotional
support, develop friendships, and have fun [Ridings and Gefen 2004]. For example, members
of a community of practice for researchers on asynchronous learning networks (i.e., online
teaching) use the platform to exchange information and comment on the effectiveness of
these networks [Zhang et al. 2001].

• Members of online communities also receive social and emotional support when they need
it. Moreover, online communities facilitate social bonding and friendship development among
members and give individual members interactive entertainment opportunities. Chess
players, for example, enjoy playing online with others and setting up online tournaments to
challenge their skills against those of other members [Ginsburg and Weisband 2004].



Beneﬁts for individuals
• A second category of beneﬁts inherent to an online community, in contrast to a physical
one, originates in the medium and technology. The Internet and its applications provide 24/7
access and operation, global geographical reach, asynchronous interaction, text editing
capabilities, and permanent storage facilities.

• Members in online communities can communicate and interact with other members
located in geographically distant places from the comfort of their own homes. Members can
interact anytime they want to (i.e., synchronously or asynchronously), and for some
communities this is an essential capability.




• Those members who contribute actively to the online community receive a third category of
benefits. Wang and Fesenmaier [2004] found that people find self-satisfaction and pride in fulfilling
their altruistic goals of helping others out within their community. Along with these individual
benefits, communities have benefits as a whole. When enough members actively participate, and as
relationships, trust, and reciprocity build up in the community, the community fulfills its goals and can
even achieve collective goals and actions for the benefit of all, such as improving housing conditions,
educating children, and conserving water. These actions would not otherwise be possible if members
acted alone [Blanchard and Horan 1998; Butler et al. 2005; Chaboudy and Jameson 2001; Hampton
2003].



Benefits for organizations
• Different types of benefits of online communities arise when they are hosted by profitoriented
organizations. Online communities of customers are believed to promote customer loyalty when
customers perceive value in the ability to communicate with other customers regarding products and
services they purchase or wish to purchase [Hagel and Armstrong 1997]. For example, buyers of
fitness videos share their experiences and results at beachbody.com after using these videos. Potential
buyers look for information to support their decisions to purchase those videos. Similarly,
organizations with online communities of employees benefit from improved communication and trust,
enhanced collaboration and access to expert knowledge, and increased productivity.

• In a study of nine online communities in seven organizations, Millen et al. [2002] found that employees
participated in the creation, accumulation, and diffusion of knowledge within the organization through
online community platforms. The organization was able to enhance problem solving, create new
business and products, and increase team productivity as the collective use of the technology
facilitated interactions and reduced the time needed to seek, gather, and share information.

• As more members participate actively in the online community, more of these benefits are accrued
for each member and for the community as a whole. As more members contribute to the community,
the community sustains itself and achieves success.



Beneﬁts for organizations



Understanding why people partecipate in
online communities
• Some investigations into identifying practical methods of designing online communities have suggested hierarchical needs
theory (Maslow, 1943) as an appropriate method of understanding and supporting users of online communities. Kim
(2000) suggests that the theory can be helpful in designing effective online communities. This was supported in a study by
Grosso (2001), which suggested that it is useful to refer to the theory as individuals may fulfil some of their so-called
needs in online communities, as well as in a study by Bishop (2002), which recommended that such communities should
provide the basic ‘deficit needs’ of users so that their higher ‘being needs’ can be also be met.

• The theory was further suggested as a means to understand online communities by Shneiderman (2002), who indicated
that it appealed to him because it is ‘orderly’. Hierarchical needs theory seems to suggest that the reason lurkers do not
participate is that their physiological or security needs are not being met and the reason elders participate is that they are
meeting their social and esteem needs. However, whilst on the face of things this may seem plausible, the supposition that
community members are participating in order to satisfy needs is unsatisfactory. Furthermore, the idea that there is a
hierarchy to an individual satisfying so-called needs is also questionable, particularly as it is possible for an individual to be
sociable and be creative at the same time and it might not be necessary for them to become secure before they act out
social desires.

• Indeed, Mook (1987) found that when individuals were not fulfilling what Maslow (1943) described as security needs, they
still wanted to be sociable with those in a similar situation to themselves, with some exhibiting altruistic behaviours. This
suggests that it is not necessary for actors that use online communities to feel safe or physiologically satisfied in order to
interact with the system. There have been numerous cases of actors going with out sleep and food in order to act out
social desires in virtual environments, which have been reported in the media (e.g. Griffiths 2005).



Understanding why people partecipate in
online communities

• Some research suggests that actors that use human-computer systems are goal-driven as opposed to needs-driven and will
seek out opportunities to meet these goals. Nielsen and Norman (2003) argue that if the attention of a user is focussed
on meeting their goals they will ignore distractions, such as advertisements that interfere with them. Mantovani (1996a)
supports this in his model of social context in which he indicates that a user, which he refers to as an actor, will construct
a situation based on their goals and competencies.

• Frameworks suggesting that actions are linked to goals seem more appropriate for online communities as needs-based
theories do not explain why community members such as lurkers do not participate if their ‘deﬁcit needs’ are being met.
March (1991) indicates that one of the primary ways in which individuals develop goals is by interpreting the actions they
take and developing new beliefs based on them. It is possible that a lurker may believe that their contribution may not be
welcomed, particularly if they have posted in a community before and received an unfavourable response.

• These beliefs will have a direct inﬂuence on their goals meaning they may not have the same willingness to participate as
an elder for example, who may hold more positive beliefs about what their actions will achieve. Whilst goals play an
important part in determining whether an individual participates in an online community, it does not seem plausible that
they are the driving force behind the actions individuals take.



The ecological cognition framework

From: Bishop J., Increasing participation in online communities: A framework for human–computer interaction, 2007.



The ecological cognition framework

• Bishop [2007] proposes a 3-level framework for understanding why members of online
communities either participate or do not participate. The framework accepts many of the
principles of action put forward by Mantovani (1996b), including that actors construct
interpretations of their environment based on their goals, which are referred to as
situations. Mantovani’s metaphor of users of virtual environments as actors seems
appropriate for users of online communities.

• The ecological cognition framework indicates that these actors will experience a desire to
carry out an action, such as solving a problem of another actor (level 1), interpret whether
taking this action is consistent with their goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests (level 2)
and use their abilities to carry out the action and perceive the environment they are part of
(level 3).



Level 1
• Level 1 of the framework is made up of an actor’s desires.

• Social (which includes the desire to become part of the community through socializing and
communicating)

• Order (which includes the desire to arrange and sort artefacts and other external
representations as well as the desire to take control of situations)

• Existential (which includes the desire to eat food and drink water)

• Vengeance (which includes the desire to retaliate to someone, such as through posting
negative comments or through ‘ﬂaming’)

• Creative (which includes the desire to create content in a wiki for example). The main
difference between this framework and needs-based theories is the concept that individuals
are not needs driven, but driven by their desires to carry out actions.



Level 1
• The five categories of desires presented in this framework are the desires that lead to the actions that are most
likely to occur in online communities.

• The ‘social’ category is included because online communities are inherently social spaces, and nearly all users will
participate through posting messages or taking part in chat sessions. Indeed, Rhiengold (2000) describes ‘the social
Web’ in which people like him participate as a result of being driven by their longings to participate.

• The ‘order’ category was included because Internet users carry out actions such as organising bookmarks,
rearranging pages and specific members such as leaders may desire to take control of a situation, such as when
members are flaming each other in a chat session. Leaders may also experience an order desire if a bulletin board
goes off-topic and will carry out actions to bring it back to the original topic, despite the fact that allowing bulletin
board to go off-topic can increase sociability in the community (Bishop, 2002).

• The ‘existential’ category was included because despite the environment being computer-mediated, online
community members will still experience desires to carry out actions such as eating and drinking, which will have
an effect on their interactions in these environments.

• The ‘vengeance’ category was included because online community members are known to be more aggressive than
those from traditional communities (Kiesler & Sproull, 1992; Wallace, 2001), carrying out actions such as flaming,
and posting negative feedback on other community members for purposes of revenge.



Level 2
• Level 2 of the model is made up of an actor’s cognitions – their goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests. Research
has already established that individuals will seek to achieve consonance of their beliefs (O’Keefe, 1990). The
ecological cognition framework extends this by suggesting that individuals will try to make their beliefs consonant
with their goals, plans, values and interests as well.

• Plans are conceived as a result of experiencing desires and are stored in memory as a result of reﬂecting on a plan
that has been acted out.

• Goals can be short-term objectives or more long-term ideas or targets to achieve.

• Beliefs are assertions that an actor believes to be true, for example, a lurker may believe that by posting a message
they are being unhelpful. Beliefs can be changed fairly easily by experience and resolving dissonance.

• Values are less easily changed than beliefs, as they are clearly deﬁned principles that the actor has accepted through
interactions with their environment.

• Interests are connections with something or somebody that the actor attempts to maintain.



Level 3
• Level 3 of the model is made up of an actor’s means to interpret and interact with
theirenvironment.

• Haptic abilities, such as the sense of touch, and capacity to interact through touch;

• Auditory abilities, such as the sense of hearing and ability to interact through speaking;

• Visual, such as the sense of sight and capacity to imagine visual images;

• Olfactory, such as the sense of smell, and gustatory, such as the sense of taste.



Enviroment

• The environment is made up of other actors, artefacts, and structures among otherthings.

• In terms of human-computer systems, artefacts take the form of text or graphics that offer
perceived affordances, such as the perceived affordance of clickability (Bishop, 2005) and
structures take the form of applications and software, such as Web browsers and plug-ins.



Principle 1: An actor is driven to act by
their desires

• The first principle of the ecological cognition framework is that actors are driven by their desires to
perform an action as opposed to satisfy an internal entity, such as a need.

• This departs from traditional theories that individuals are needs-driven, a concept that is not
appropriate for online communities. Unlike it is commonly thought, desires are not responses to
emotions, as they are not sufficiently connected with feelings (Kenny, 1963). Recent research has
acknowledged the existence of desires (Reiss, 2004), but these regard desires to be much like what
Maslow (1943) describes as needs in that they need to be ‘satisfied’ as opposed to acted out. In the
context of the author’s model, desires are thoughts or requests for action that an actor experiences
as opposed to a requirement or want.

• It is acknowledged that one of the reasons online community members participate is that they are
driven by their desires to participate (Rhiengold, 2000) and the ethos behind the ecological cognition
framework is that online community members are part of the community to give in the form of acting
out their desires, as opposed to take from them as hierarchical needs theory suggests.



Principle 1: An actor is driven to act by
their desires
• Under this framework, an elder, who regularly replies to posts in an online community, can be seen as
acting out several desires. The elder could be acting out their creative desires, by solving the problems
of other actors, or they could be acting out their social desires, by communicating with others to
share their community’s values and beliefs.

• Kim (2000) identiﬁes three other categories of online community members who are neither lurkers
nor elders. They are novices, who were once lurkers, but have become new members who need to
learn about the community and its values; regulars, who were once novices, but now are established in
the community and comfortably participating in community life and leaders, who are volunteers and
staff who keep the community running and go on to become elders.

• Like elders, novices will have desires to be social, but like lurkers they may not participate fully, but for
different reasons. Regulars act out their desires to be social and creative, and as Wallace (2001) points
out, they are sometimes known to act out their less constructive desires if another regular posts a
message to a novice that is contrary to their beliefs. Leaders may act out their order desires, by
ensuring that bulletin boards do not go off topic, or by ensuring that everyone is able to participate.



Principle 2 – an actor’s desire to act is limited by
their goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests
• The second principle of the ecological cognition framework is that an actor will take into account their existing
goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests before taking action based on their desires, which may have made such
cognitions dissonant.

• The framework suggests that once an actor has a desire, they will develop a plan to act out that desire, much in the
same way that when they perceive an affordance in the environment they develop plans to interact with the
artefact that offered it. The actor may then find that this plan is dissonant with their beliefs. For example, a lurker
may desire to be social and develop a plan to communicate with another actor, but believe they will not be being
helpful by doing so, so they do not act out their desire, thus experiencing temperance.

• Even if the actor did not have any beliefs that prevented them from acting out their desire, if the plan to act out
the desire was inconsistent with their existing plans, their values, their goals or their interests, then they will
experience temperance and not act out the plan.

• This is a significantly different concept to those models that propose that actors are goal-driven. According to this
framework, actors are not driven by goals, but use their goals to validate the plans that develop from their desires.
In their online community framework (OCF), De Souza and Preece (2004) appear to support this concept by
indicating that an actor will share goals with other community members and have their actions influenced by them.
The OCF also indicates that actors will adopt the norms and rules of the community and such beliefs will also
influence their actions.



Principle 2 – an actor’s desire to act is limited by
their goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests
• An important aspect of this second principle is that an actor’s cognitions are regularly dissonant and the actor is
always trying to make them consonant in order to achieve consonance and experience intemperance through
taking actions that reﬂect their desires.

• For example, an actor may have a desire to help someone in an online community and plan to go to the
community to seek out an opportunity to help someone, but when they ﬁnd that opportunity they may have a
belief that they will not be helpful by posting. They have to resolve this dissonance by either changing their belief or
changing their plan. To do this they could use their values, which could include a value to always help someone in
need, or their goals, which could include a goal to be a valued member of the community.

• Unlike hierarchical needs theory, the ecological cognition framework does not suggest there is a hierarchy to an
actor’s desires. The prepotency of a desire is not determined at Level 1 by an inbuilt structure, it is determined at
Level 2 by the way in which an actor has made their cognitions consonant.

• For example,an actor using an instant messaging tool may have an existential desire to eat, but they may also have a
social desire to continue with the conversation. The desire that is prepotent will be determined by whether the
actor believes it is more important to have food or be sociable.

• However, strong an actor’s desires to contribute to an online community, if they are unable to make their
cognitions consonant, they are more likely to experience temperance than intemperance.



OCF

• The purpose of the OCF (Online community framework) is to help designers understand online
communities, keeping in mind: the structure of their constitutive entities and the relationships among
them; and the communicative aspects of computer-mediated human interaction that affect such
communities. The ease with which community members interact with each other and with the
technology will depend on how well designers support sociability and usability.

• Thus, by analyzing existing communities or candidate design solutions using the OCF, designers will be
able to make their understanding about how their design is intended to meet community needs more
explicit and potentially more perspicuous. Since design is a knowledge-intensive activity, any tool that
improves the level of the designer’s knowledge contributes to the outcome of the process.



OCF



OCF
• Each one of the three constituents (in white boxes) will be described in more detail in the sub-
sections that follow.

• The online community constituent is embedded in a software environment and thus achieves
computer-mediated human experience.

• The usability and sociability constituent provides the goals (requirements and inspiration) for
designing the online community.Since sociability is concerned with the social interactions in the
community, whereas usability describes human–computer interaction, sociability and usability directly
affect the online community.

• Finally, the interpretive constituent matches the usability and sociability design goals with how they
affect the community’s experiences, and explains how technology enables the achievement of
computer-mediated experiences.



OCF
The online community constituent can be described at various levels of abstraction. The constituent is
represented as a directed graph in which:

• nodes (i.e. the rounded shapes) stand for entities (e.g. community, people, purposes, policies, etc.)

• arcs (i.e. the uni-directional lines linking nodes) stand for binary relations between entities (e.g.
community has purposes, has policies etc.); and

• nodes and arcs have attributes (e.g. all entities and relations have a name, entities may be types, like for
instance communications of type ‘request’).


OCF
Entities, the relations between them, and their attributes are subject to two types of rules:

• structuring rules generate particular sub-graphs (i.e. compound entities) under conditions determined by the entities,
relations and/or attributes of the framework;

• inference rules generate implicit relations between conceptual entities or place constraints on the values of the
attributes (including establishing a unique value for an attribute) in the framework.

Entities may be simple or compound:

• simple entities must be explicitly represented as nodes in the graph;

• compound entities may be explicitly represented as nodes in the graph, but must all be derivable from the set of
structuring or inference rules stated in the framework.

Relations may be direct or indirect:

• direct relations must be represented explicitly as arcs in the graph;

• indirect relations may be explicitly represented as arcs in the graph, but must be derivable from the set of structuring or
inference rules stated in the framework.


Principle 3 – An actor will act based on
how they perceive their environment
• The third principle of the ecological cognition framework is that an actor will carry out an action based on how they
perceive their environment. Mantovani (1996a) has already demonstrated that an actor will take into account their goals
when interacting with artefacts and other actors, but the ecological cognition framework indicates that they will take into
account their plans, values and beliefs as well. If an actor has the desire to do something that results in a plan, this plan is
consonant with their cognitions, and they have the ability to act out the desire, the next stage is to interact with the
environment.

• The environment is made up of among other things, actors and artefacts, with the actor limiting their attention focus to
those aspects of the functional system they are within that provides them with the opportunity to act out their desires.
Indeed, the region of the brain associated with coding the affordance of artefacts (the left inferior parietal lobule) is the
same region associated with selective attention (Frederikse, Lu, Aylward, Barta, & Pearlson, 1999; Gre´zes & Decety, 2002).
Furthermore, this region of the brain is also associated with motor planning (Winstein, Grafton, & Pohl, 1997), suggesting
that when an actor perceives an affordance they are inﬂuencing their plans to act out their desires.

• Mantovani’s framework (1996a) indicates that actors will seek out opportunities in their environment to meet their goals
through limiting their attention focus to those artefacts within their competencies. The ecological cognition framework
partially supports this by indicating that an actor will seek out opportunities to meet their desires and how they act out
these desires will depend on the situation they have constructed based on how they have perceived their environment. An
actor will take into account their goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests when perceiving their environment. If for
example, a regular had a desire to be social, they may seek out actors with whom to be social with.

• They would take into account their beliefs about these actors when deciding whether to act out their desires with them
and also whether communicating with these particular actors is consistent with their existing plans, goals and values.



Persuading actors to participate in online
communities
• Encouraging participation is one of the greatest challenges for any online community provider. There is a large amount of
literature demonstrating ways in which online communities can be effectively built (Figallo, 1998; Kim, 2000; Preece, 2000;
Young, 2000).

• However, an online community can have the right tools, the right chat platform and the right ethos, but if community
members are not participating the community will not ﬂourish. Encouraging members to change from lurkers into novices
is proving to be a challenge for community providers and whilst there is a lot of research into why lurkers do not
participate (Nonnecke & Preece, 2000; Preece et al., 2004; Takahashi, Fujimoto, & Yamasaki, 2002) there are few suggestions
about how to change their behaviour. Traditional methods of behaviour modiﬁcation are unsuitable for virtual
environments.

• Methodologies, such as operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938) would suggest that thecway to turn lurkers into elders is to
reward them for taking participatory actions. Evencif the concept that participatory actions, such as posting messages will
be repeated if they are rewarded was accepted, this method would still require a lurker to take the initial step and post a
message.

• The ecological cognition framework proposes that in order for actors to carry out a participatory action, such as posting a
message, there needs to be a desire to do so, the desire needs to be consistent with the actor’s goals, plans, values, beliefs
and interests and they need to have abilities and tools to do so.

• Some actors such as lurkers, may have the desire and the capabilities, but hold beliefs that prevent them from making
participatory actions in online communities. In order for them to do so, they need to have the desire to do so and their
beliefs need to be changed.



Persuading actors to participate in online
communities
• Traditional methods, such as operant conditioning may be able to change the belief of a lurker that they are not being helpful by
posting a message, but it is unlikely that they will be effective at changing other beliefs, such as the belief they do not need to post.
In order to change beliefs it is necessary to make an actor’s beliefs dissonant, something that could be uncomfortable for the actor.
Indeed Bishop (2004) points out that actors will be less willing to be persuaded if the presented arguments conﬂict with the
beliefs, plans and values they have already developed.

• However, the use of persuasive text, which is any message devised to counter the beliefs of man actor and provide them with new
information (Chambliss & Garner, 1996; Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1954) can be one way of changing the beliefs of lurkers, although
some studies have questioned the effectiveness of persuasive text in human-computer systems (Murphy, Long, Holleran, & Esterly,
2003).

• When presented with a piece of persuasive text that is dissonant with their existingbeliefs, an actor will take into account factors
including the credibility of the source before changing their beliefs, as well as their other cognitions, such as their goals. This
suggests that a lurker may be persuaded to change their beliefs that lead them to experience temperance if they consider the
community members suggesting they participate credibly and changing the belief would be consistent with the goals that they hold.

• Bishop (2002) investigated using a rating system, whereby community members indicated whether they found a particular member
trustworthy or not. In the system, which worked similar to the rating system used by eBay.co.uk, individuals were given one point
by each member who thought they were trustworthy and lost one point by each member who thought they were untrustworthy.

• This system would indicate to lurkers which members are most credible, meaning they may be more likely to be persuaded by
them to change their beliefs and participate.



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