[Air-l] Tutorial: Online Communities

[chadia Abras]

HCI International 2003
Crete, Greece, June 22-27
T1: Online Communities
Full Day Tutorial
Jennifer Preece, Chadia Abras
University of Maryland Baltimore County

Objectives:
This tutorial provides a broad introduction to the research and development
practices involved in creating successful online communities. After completing
this tutorial you should:

Be able to discuss research that impacts the design, management and success of
online communities (part 1);
Be aware of different software architectures for supporting online communities
and know the pros and cons of using two well-known freeware bulletin board
systems (part 2);
Know what is involved in participatory community development, and be able to
evaluate usability and sociability of the design (part 3);
Be aware of management challenges for moderating and supporting an evolving
online community (part 3);
Be able to discuss the differences between health, education and business online
communities and how these differences impact development and management of these
communities (part 4).

Content and Benefits:
The content for the day will be split into 4 parts. Each part will contain
activities that involve participants in small groups.

Morning part 1: Review of key research findings about developing and managing
online. communities.
This review focuses on topics that directly address the question: ‘what makes an
online community successful?’ This review will provide a foundation for the
discussion and activities that follow during the rest of the day. Some topics
that will be covered include: the purpose of online communities, communication
and conflict online, identity, social presence and awareness, participation and
lurking, empathy and trust.
Benefits: It would take months to find and synthesize this information unless
you are working in this area.

Morning part 2: What to look for in software to support online communities.
We will briefly review the different types of software environments that can be
used to support online communities. We will then examine the features of two
popular freeware bulletin board systems in detail and report on our experience
of using these systems. We will also review architectures for a few well-known
commercial environments.
Benefits: You will learn about currently available software and what it is like
to develop online communities using these systems.

Lunch

Afternoon part 1: Developing and managing online communities.
We will present a ‘participatory community development method’. Our method
describes what to look out for when developing online communities, how to
involve participants, guidelines for developing and managing successful online
communities and heuristics for evaluating success.
Benefits: You will learn about key issues in developing and managing online
communities.

Afternoon part 2: Special issues of concern for: health, education and business
communities. Communities differ depending upon their goals. During the last part
of the tutorial we will examine examples of health, education and business
communities and we will analyze their differences in order to understand what
makes each type successful.
Benefits: You will learn how communities differ and how to design and manage
different types of communities.

Book: Online communities: Designing usability, supporting sociability (Preece,
2000) John Wiley & Sons, England: Chichester.

Target Audience:
We welcome practitioners and academics who seek a broad exposure to the
practicalities of developing online communities.

Brief Biographical Sketch:
Jennifer Preece is a professor of information systems at UMBC. She researches
and teaches online communities and human-computer interaction. Her research
focuses on understanding the usability and sociability issues that contribute to
the success of different types of online communities. Topics on which she is
currently working include: empathy and trust, participation and lurking (i.e.,
non-posting), heuristics and tools for evaluating success. Jenny Preece has
published widely and is author or co-author of 8 books including two recent
ones: Preece, J., Rogers, Y. & Sharp, H. (2002) Interaction design: Beyond
human-computer interaction. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. www.id-book.com and
Preece, J. (2000) Online communities: Designing usability, supporting
sociability. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities

Chadia Abras is a graduate student at UMBC. Her research focuses on developing
usability and sociability heuristics to assess success in different types of
online communities. A goal of this work is to develop metrics that determine
success. Her work uses a community-centered development approach, assessing the
usability and sociability of the site, selecting software to support online
communities and evaluating the community through surveys, interviews and logging
in order to determine success.