Today, the emergence of social software technologies transforms the Internet to a medium of mass social interaction and collaboration, also promoting the formation of massive online communities. On the other hand, huge amounts of multimedia content, provided by and shared among individuals and community members, are constantly accumulated in content sharing enablers. This position paper present...

The Internet has made it possible to incorporate adult mentors in the classroom in ways that it would have been difficult or impossible to do previously. As we move forward with such projects, it is important for us to consider what these adults contribute to the learning process. Palaver Tree Online is an online community that supports kids interviewing elders to build up a shared database of ...

Drawing from the author’s experience of carrying out observational research in two online communities, this paper explores the instability of localised research ethics. The paper presents a framework for conceptualising the ongoing production and destabilisation of ethical stances in research, arguing that such destabilisation can be productive, provoking methodological/ethical learning.

The paper explores the inter-relation and differences between the concepts of occupational community, community of practice, online community and social network. It uses as a case study illustration the domain of UK university web site production and specifically a listserv for those involved in it. Different latent occupational communities are explored, and the potential for the listserv to he...

Commons-based peer production does seem to rest upon a paradox. Although users produce all contents, at the same time participation is commonly on a voluntary basis, and largely incentivized by achievement of project’s goals. This means that users have to coordinate their actions and goals, in order to keep themselves from leaving. While this situation is easily explainable for small groups of ...

To obtain the development and change of teachers’ strategic knowledge in teachers’ online community of practice (TOCP) in China, content analysis, video case analysis and statistical analysis methods were adopted to study 45 teachers (15 novice teachers, 15 key teachers, and 15 experienced teachers) from three participating schools during three phases. The development and change of different te...

With the increasing need to understand pedagogy online, but also with the understanding that the role of designated leaders in online communities has not been examined, the paper presents a study that aims to examine how instructors in online learning platforms may impact, through their presence, participants’ online engagement. The theoretical foundations of the study are based on a typology o...

The study of cybercommunity is inevitably linked to the development of the internet amid other cultural phenomena, and cybercommunity as a cultural practice has clearly reached a point of critical mass.The concept of online community has become increasingly diluted as it evolves into a pastiche of elements that ostensibly ‘signify’ community.This study grapples with the concept of community in ...

Introduction. Increasing numbers of women are seeking labial reduction surgery. We studied the motivations for considering labial reduction surgery as recounted on women’s online communities and surgery provider’s

Strategy researchers have long been concerned with the sources of competitive advantage, i.e., why some firms’ performance is superior over others. One argument to answer this question is provided by the dynamic capability view which posits that some firms are better at adapting to a changing business environment than others. This study scrutinizes online communities and their interplay with dy...