C&T 2011: 5th International Conference on Communities & Technologies

https://dl.eusset.eu/handle/20.500.12015/1987

The biennial Communities and Technologies (C&T) conference is the premier international forum for stimulating scholarly debate and disseminating research on the complex connections between communities – both physical and virtual – and information and communication technologies. C&T 2011 welcomes participation from researchers, designers, educators, industry, and students from the many disciplines and perspectives bearing on the interaction between community and technology, including architecture, arts, business, design, economics, education, engineering, ergonomics, information technology, geography, health, humanities, law, media and communication studies, and social sciences. The conference program will include competitively selected, peer-reviewed papers, as well as pre-conference workshops, a doctoral consortium, and invited keynote and panel speakers. We look forward to welcoming you to an exciting conference in Brisbane, Australia’s new world city.

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Brewing up citizen engagement: the coffee party on facebook
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Mascaro, Christopher M.; Goggins, Sean P.
With this study we seek to provide an understanding of the discourse and agenda setting practices of an online issue based political group, "Join the Coffee Party Movement" (JCPM) in the United States. The stated goals of JCPM are to establish a place for individuals who identify themselves as disenfranchised to discuss and take action on issues of social and economic policy in the US. JCPM is one example of hundreds of issue-based organizations emerging on Facebook worldwide. Since its inception in January 2010, over 344,000 Facebook members have become followers of the JCPM page. Our analysis of the text of the discourse and the social networks, which emerge on the JCPM page, show three surprising results. First, in contrast to prior studies, significant deliberative discourse among members emerges in this open, public space without prompting. Second, the discourse practices and structure that emerge on the JCPM Facebook page show two types of leadership: Centralized, organizational leadership, and decentralized leadership from participants. Third, we identify two structural characteristics of this virtual political organization using social network analysis of trace data: a) Organizational leaders are not central to discussions of controversial topics
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Bridging the affective gap to make news felt: spaces of aestheticized public voice
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Brynskov, Martin; Leong, Tuck Wah; Fritsch, Jonas
We report our experiences of how public voice, news reporting, and sensor information can be blended and mediated digitally in ways different from the traditional formats of civic debate. We use Klimatrends (Climate Trends), an iPhone app and related infrastructure, as a probe to understand how citizens, journalists, and other stakeholders can engage in conversations and reflections on an important topic or event understood as a space for aestheticized public voice. By attempting to make news "felt" through bridging an "affective gap" between readers/consumers and news/information providers we offer a tentative design strategy for public engagement with civic debate.
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Communication content relations to coordination and trust over time: a computer game perspective
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Richter, Sebastian; Lechner, Ulrike
We research synchronous ad-hoc teams coping with complex tasks in a dynamic virtual computer game environment. We shed light on relations of communication, coordination and trust. We develop a model of coordination and show how coordination evolves over time.
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Crowdsourcing in the cultural heritage domain: opportunities and challenges
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Oomen, Johan; Aroyo, Lora
Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (short: GLAMs) around the globe are beginning to explore the potential of crowdsourcing, i. e. outsourcing specific activities to a community though an open call. In this paper, we propose a typology of these activities, based on an empirical study of a substantial amount of projects initiated by relevant cultural heritage institutions. We use the Digital Content Life Cycle model to study the relation between the different types of crowdsourcing and the core activities of heritage organizations. Finally, we focus on two critical challenges that will define the success of these collaborations between amateurs and professionals: (1) finding sufficient knowledgeable, and loyal users
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Discussing illicit drugs in public internet forums: visibility, stigma, and pseudonymity
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Barratt, Monica J.
It has been claimed that people discuss their own illicit drug use online because anonymity allows them to avoid the legal and social risks of identifying themselves as drug users. Discourses around the risks, strategies and management of online drug discussion were produced by interviewing 26 'party drug' users who reported participating in internet forums where drugs were discussed. Three factors influenced the extent to which drug forum users discussed their own drug use in public internet forums: perceived visibility, perceived legal risk and social stigma, and perceived effectiveness of pseudonymity. Implications for internet research with drug users are discussed.
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Do lurking learners contribute less?: a knowledge co-construction perspective
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Chen, Fei-Ching; Chang, Hsiu-Mei
Drawing upon the emergent idea that "the negotiation of meaning involves the interaction of participation and reification", this study proposes an entirely different perspective on lurking. Collecting data from 82 group forums with a total of 490 members, we identify 46 lurking learners by comparing the online/postings ratio of each member within the group. Further classification of these lurkers provides an opportunity to highlight the neglected contribution of the types of lurkers who go online regularly but post only sporadically from the framework of knowledge co-construction. This paper concludes by challenging the common emphasis on the quantity of postings.
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Global online meetings in virtual teams: from media choice to interaction negotiation
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Pongolini, Malin; Lundin, Johan; Svensson, Lars
This paper draws on an ethnographical study of a community of technology experts within a global automotive manufacturing company that uses information technology to communicate and collaborate in global virtual teams. Our findings show that discussions, negotiations, compromises and joint problem solving characterize media choices made in virtual teamwork. Practitioners are adding new media to ongoing interactions, rather than using media in sequence. Furthermore, one medium is not used exclusively, rather a number of media can be used in parallel. This shows that some of the fundamental assumptions built into the concept of media choice theories, are somewhat problematic as an analytical perspective when virtual teams are researched in real settings outside of laboratories and hypothetical scenarios.
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Mail2Wiki: Low-cost Sharing and Early Curation from Email to Wikis
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Hanrahan, Ben; Bouchard, Guillaume; Convertino, Gregorio; Weksteen, Thiebaud; Kong, Nicholas; Archambeau, Cedric; Chi, Ed H.
In this design paper we motivate and describe the Mail2Wiki system, which enables low-cost sharing and early curation from email to wikis by knowledge workers. We aim to aid adoption of enterprise wikis and enable more efficient knowledge sharing and reuse. We present a design rationale grounded in prior empirical work, the design of the system, and the evaluation of the user interface. The system includes two alternative front-ends to enable incremental adoption by workers who are currently using email to share with their communities.
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Motivating domestic energy conservation through comparative, community-based feedback in mobile and social media
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Petkov, Petromil; Köbler, Felix; Foth, Marcus; Krcmar, Helmut
The progress of technology has led to the increased adoption of energy monitors among household energy consumers. While the monitors available on the market deliver real-time energy usage feedback to the consumer, the format of this data is usually unengaging and mundane. Moreover, it fails to address consumers with different motivations and needs to save and compare energy. This paper presents a study that seeks to provide initial indications for motivation-specific design of energy-related feedback. We focus on comparative feedback supported by a community of energy consumers. In particular, we examine eco-visualisations, temporal self-comparison, norm comparison, one-on-one comparison and ranking, whereby the last three allow us to explore the potential of socialising energy-related feedback. These feedback types were integrated in EnergyWiz -- a mobile application that enables users to compare with their past performance, neighbours, contacts from social networking sites and other EnergyWiz users. The application was evaluated in personal, semi-structured interviews, which provided first insights on how to design motivation-related comparative feedback.
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panOULU: triple helix driven municipal wireless network providing open and free internet access
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Ojala, Timo; Orajärvi, Jukka; Puhakka, Katriina; Heikkinen, Ilari; Heikka, Juhani
This paper describes the birth, evolution and current status of a unique wireless city network provided by a consortium of municipalities, public research and educational institutions, and industry. The relevance of the network is illustrated with statistics of providing open and free Internet access to the general public and with R&D examples. The keys to the success of the network have included brave collaboration transgressing organizational boundaries, strong political and operative leadership, cost-effective outsourcing, and the 'KISS' principle in network design.
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Playing with empathy: digital role-playing games in public meetings
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Gordon, Eric; Schirra, Steven
Digital role-playing games can be an effective tool for augmenting deliberation in a community planning process. We study the implementation of a game called Participatory Chinatown---a 3D, multiplayer game designed to be played in the shared physical space of a master planning meeting in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood. This research examines how role-play can affect the way people understand local issues and engage with their community. It also points to the challenges of extending player empathy from the magic circle of gameplay to the larger context of a community meeting. It suggests that emotional engagement with character and or space does not easily translate into a rational decision-making process. The authors make suggestions for future research that might address this challenge.
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Plugged in to the community: social motivators in online goal-setting groups
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Burke, Moira; Settles, Burr
At personal goal-setting websites, people join others in committing to a challenging goal, such as losing ten pounds or writing a novel in a month. Despite the popularity of these online communities, we know little about whether or how they improve goal performance. Based on theories of goal-setting and group attachment, we examine the influence of two social factors in an online "songwriting challenge" community: early feedback evoking a shared social identity, and one-on-one collaborations with other members. Combining five years of longitudinal behavioral data with member surveys, we find that users who engage in these social features perform better on their goals than those who are non-social. Furthermore, these early social experiences are associated with strong community-centric behaviors in the long term, including donating money and providing feedback to others.
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Public deliberation in municipal planning: supporting action and reflection with mobile technology
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Bohøj, Morten; Borchorst, Nikolaj G.; Bødker, Susanne; Korn, Matthias; Zander, Pär-Ola
This paper reports on an exploratory participatory design process aimed at supporting citizen deliberation in municipal planning. It presents the main outcomes of this process in terms of selected prototypes and an approach to the use setting. We support and discuss different ways for citizens to act and reflect on proposed plans: in-situ, while physically close to the planning object, and ex-situ, when citizens are remote from this. The support of in-situ and ex-situ participation allows citizens to engage in continuous reflection-in and on-action as a collaborative activity with other citizens, hereby inspiring citizens to increase their democratic engagement.
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Public engagement with biomedical research through location-sensitive technology
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Naylor, Ryan; Elliott, Kristine; Gray, Kathleen; Wadley, Greg
Augmented reality was used as an innovative way to engage the general public with biomedical and healthcare research information. Six research institutes in Melbourne's Parkville precinct were augmented with web-based information, and volunteers tested the usability of both this content and the augmented reality browser. Participants' feedback concerning the usefulness of the biomedical and healthcare information was very positive
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Questions, inspiration, feedback, and contributions: how entrepreneurs network online
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Nylander, Stina; Rudström, Åsa
This work investigates how entrepreneurs use social networking sites for business. Through surveys, online discussions and interviews, we have looked at activities, motives for participating on networking sites for business, motives for contributing, and differences between online and offline networking. Our results show that networking, facts finding, and marketing are very common activities while sharing of experience is quite rare. Entrepreneurs connect with new people online rather than reifying offline networks. A novel use of social media is that of small businesses using Facebook as a web hotel. We believe that an important explanation to our results is that social media are still informal and not yet incorporated in traditional work routines.
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Social network analysis of an online dating network
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Chen, Lin; Nayak, Richi
Online social networks can be found everywhere from chatting websites like MSN, blogs such as MySpace to social media such as YouTube and second life. Among them, there is one interesting type of online social networks, online dating network that is growing fast. This paper analyzes an online dating network from social network analysis point of view. Observations are made and results are obtained in order to suggest a better recommendation system for people-to-people networks.
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Suicide effects: designing for death
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Rod, Jan; Graham, Connor; Gibbs, Martin
This paper presents design ideas and suggestions for digital signage systems within the Tokyo transportation system to create and nurture social and community engagement around the phenomena of train suicide. This method of taking one's own life is widespread in Japan and repeatedly cripples the schedules of trains creating delays. The authors of this study have conducted field research and interviewed a number of participants on their perception of suicide in the train system and their observation of other passengers' behaviour. Our analysis has shown that a tragic act, such as suicide, offers multiple views and departure points for design. The outcomes of the paper, aside from analysis of collected data, are ideas and suggestions for designs and design guidance for particular urban spaces and insights into the design of urban systems that foster community awareness and engagement.
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The spaces between: ICT and marginalization in the South African city
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Odendaal, Nancy
Popular media and policy rhetoric often portray Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a means to social and economic empowerment. Many assumptions embedded in ICT for Development (ICT4D) literature do the same. The ubiquitous presence of mobile telephony in emerging countries such as South Africa and proliferation of digital networks imply a critical role for these technologies in overcoming physical constraints in space. Is access to technology enough however? This paper responds by reflecting on two sources of data collected over a three-year period in Durban, South Africa. A web development process for community organizations in two townships was followed and documented. The second data source entailed focus groups conducted with foreign street traders (hawkers) active in many parts of the city. The notion of 'spaces between' refers to the in-between physical places not well served by ICT and other infrastructure, where cell phone access provides the only opportunity for digital connection. It also refers to the 'blind spots' in policy making and city governance. Here it refers to the in-between 'spaces' of those engaged in the informal economy, many of whom are foreign nationals exposed to harassment and violence off the landscape of legitimacy and economic inclusion.
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Where should I send my post?: the concept of discourse quality in online forums and its dependency on membership size
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Aschoff, Felix-Robinson; Schaer, Verena; Schwabe, Gerhard
Today's Web users are faced with a large number of available online communities for every domain. While there are rules-of-thumb for the choice of a specific community, the validity of these heuristics has hardly been tested empirically. Furthermore, there is a lack of well-founded measures that allow for a systematic comparison of different online forum communities. In this contribution, we propose the concept of discourse quality as a means to this end. This measure is conceptualized from a user perspective and combines quantitative as well as qualitative parts, including a codebook for content analysis. To show the applicability and the usefulness of this measure, we systematically compare 34 online forums with varying degrees of membership size. We are able to show that the forums with the most members online consistently show high discourse quality. Finally, we discuss the potential of benchmark measures for future online community research.
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Wiki-based community collaboration in organizations
(Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Mansour, Osama; Abusalah, Mustafa; Askenäs, Linda
Social media technologies are increasingly used within organizational settings. Particularly, organizations continue to adopt and use wikis for enabling collaboration among their professional communities of practice. At this respect, the current paper reports results from an interpretive case study focusing on the use of a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing at a large multinational organization. It examines how the wiki is used by members of several professional communities of practice through interviews, observations, field studies, and documents. It concludes by showing that the openness of the wiki has a dual impact on wiki collaboration and also discusses how the wiki might serve as both an enabler and inhibitor for community and knowledge collaboration.

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