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קהילות ידע של משרד הרווחה: שימושים והשפעות. דוח עבור משרד הרווחה
Abstract
דוח זה סוקר את פעילות קהילות הידע של משרד הרווחה, ואת השפעתן הנתפסת על המשתמשים. במסגרת הדוח נעשה שימוש בארבע שיטות מחקר: ראשית, נותחו נתוני השימוש בקהילות לצורך הפקת סטטיסטיקות כלליות על
התנהלות חברי הקהילות וענני מילים אשר מתארים את שכיחויות המילים הנפוצות בהודעות הקהילות השונות. כמו כן, נותחו כלל ההודעות ב 11- קבוצות דיון נבחרות באמצעות ניתוח תוכן כמותי. בנוסף על כך נעשו ראיונות עם 71חברי קהילה ומנהלים, וכן בוצע סקר בקרב חברי הקהילות, לצורך השלמת אחד הפרקים.
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Virtual communities provide an attractive place for organizations to mine information regarding customer perceptions, needs, and demographics; as well as to generate revenue through sales of products, services, information, and advertising. However, the community conversation provides information about only one type of community user, the poster. Information about the lurker, who never posts, is conspicuously absent from the obvious community data source, the postings. Lurkers may be a large portion of the user community and could provide key revenue sources and vital information, or they potentially could turn into posters. This research contrasts the differences in the underlying motivations of lurkers, infrequent posters, and posters in order to understand the resulting differences in their behavior. 518 users from 20 virtual communities were categorized into three groups based upon their posting behaviors: lurkers who never posted, infrequent posters who posted three or less times per month, and frequent posters. Results revealed that lurkers differed significantly from posters, especially in their willingness to give information and exchange social support. There was a gradual progression from lurker to poster regarding the desires to get knowledge and obtain shopping information. Implications about a possible psychological barrier regarding giving information and social support are discussed.
Under-contribution is a problem for many online communities. Social psychology theories of social loafing and goal-setting can provide mid-level design principles to address this problem. We tested the design principles in two field experiments. In one, members of an online movie recommender community were reminded of the uniqueness of their contributions and the benefits that follow from them. In the second, they were given a range of individual or group goals for contribution. As predicted by theory, individuals contributed when they were reminded of their uniqueness and when they were given specific and challenging goals, but other predictions were not borne out. The paper ends with suggestions and challenges for mining social science theories as well as implications for design.
In the face of inevitable turnover, every online community must incorporate successive generations of newcomers to survive. Without replacing members who leave, a community will eventually wither away. Newcomers can also be a source of innovation, new ideas and work procedures or other resources that the group needs. However, attracting newcomers and incorporating them into an existing community can be a difficult endeavor. Newcomers have not yet developed the commitment to the group felt by old-timers. As a result, they are very sensitive to the public image a community has and to their own early experiences in it. They may not join or are likely to leave in the face of even minor adversity. They have less motivation to be helpful to the group or to display good organizational citizenship characteristic of many old-timers (Organ & Ryan, 1995). In addition, for reasons of either ignorance or maliciousness, they may behave in ways that can be harmful to the group. They do not yet know the norms guiding behavior in the group and in their ignorance, may act in ways that offend other group members or otherwise undercut the smooth functioning of the group. For example, when
Within democratic theory, the deliberative variant has assumed pre-eminence. It represents for many the ideal of democracy, and in pursuit of this ideal, online discussion forums have been proposed as solutions to the practical limits to mass deliberation. Critics have pointed to evidence which suggests that online discussion has tended to undermine deliberation. This article argues that this claim, which generates a stand-off between the two camps, misses a key issue: the role played by design in facilitating or thwarting deliberation. It argues that political choices are made both about the format and operation of the online discussion, and that this affects the possibility of deliberation. Evidence for the impact of design (and the choices behind it) is drawn from analysis of European Union and UK discussion forums. This evidence suggests that we should view deliberation as dependent on design and choice, rather than a predetermined product of the technology.
Years of research have demonstrated that the physical presence of others can reduce the tendency to help individuals needing assistance. This study examined whether the diffusion of responsibility phenomenon extends beyond face-to-face environments and helps explain the lack of responsiveness often demonstrated by Internet users who receive e-mail requests sent to multiple people simultaneously. Participants were sent an e-mail message requesting assistance with an online library search task. Each person received the message along with an indication that 0, 1, 14, or 49 others were also contacted. The results demonstrated partial support for the study hypothesis. As expected, the virtual presence of many others significantly reduced e-mail responsiveness; however, nonresponse did not directly increase in proportion with group size.
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