This paper integrates expectancy disconfirmation theory and justice theory to construct a model for investigating the motivations behind people’s knowledge sharing in open professional virtual communities. The study holds that three dimensions of positive disconfirmation (i.e., knowledge quality, self-worth, and social interaction), three dimensions of justice (i.e., distributive, procedural ju...

The level of intellectual energy and excitement at NOAO has increased markedly in the last few months. Everywhere you turn in Arizona and Chile, new projects and ideas are blossoming, creating new research opportunities and capabilities for our user community now and in the near future. Engaging with these new projects and the associated collaborations, hosting national centers, and sponsoring ...

Available online 4 March 2009

This paper examines the “Gray Web Forums” in Taiwan. We study their characteristics and develop an analysis framework for assisting investigations on forum communities. Based on the statistical data collected from online forums, we found that the relationship between a posting and its responses is highly correlated to the forum nature. In addition, hot threads extracted based on the proposed me...

This article is a report of the use of an electronic network by trainee teachers in a `school-based' initial teacher education course to facilitate discussion between participants. A rational for incorporating computer conferencing, drawing on teachers' knowledge and how this might be acquired, is presented. The potential of electronic networks for sharing ideas about teaching, and encouraging ...

ommunity policing is the principal operational strategy for many police organisations throughout the world. However, Community Based Policing, Community Oriented Policing or simply Community Policing is a value laden idea. Consequently, the way an organisation understands the history of police/community relations and the notions of 'community' and 'community policing' will largely dictate outco...

A common problem that a virtual community fails to develop is that its members’ motivation to contribute valuable resources to the community, e.g., time, labour, money, information, or knowledge, will diminish over time. We believe that strong social relationships among members and those between members and their virtual community play an important role in motivating members to stay longer with...

after 50 years of  hegemony of  the  mubarak authoritarian discourse in egypt, the people of this country were able to challenge the hegemony of authoritarian discourse. with the fall of the mubarak regime, the muslim brotherhood seized power. a year after  that muslim brotherhood coming to power, the group, due  to the  incompetence in accordance with the political and economic conditions, lac...

A wide range of behavior may be seen as destructive to online communities. Yet behavior that is ‘bad’ in one community may be celebrated in another. The work of community maintenance is therefore strongly contextual, involving complex choices due to differing norms, community cross-membership, and the need to invoke fairness. The experienced, “lived in” work of moderators; how they enact norms ...