C&T 2007 Paper Abstracts

Nicole Ellison
Michigan State University

Keywords: Deception, online dating, self-presentation

Abstract: Online dating profiles are a popular new tool for initiating romantic relationships, although recent research suggests that they may also be a fertile ground for deception. The present study examines deception in online dating profiles using a novel cross-validation technique for establishing ground truth for online self-presentation. An analysis of 80 participants' profiles suggests that the deviations between participants' online self-presentations and the truth tended to be small but frequent. This pattern of deception is consistent with the Hyperpersonal model's assertion that online communicators engage in strategic and selective self-presentation. The results also suggest that, when deciding what to lie about, users take into consideration both the technical affordances of online dating portals, such as the editability of profiles, as well as the more so-cial aspects of online dating, such as warranting and relational goals.

Meg Cramer, Debbie Zutty, Brooke Foucault, David Huffaker, Dustin Derby, Justine Cassell
Northwestern University

Abstract: : The effect of adult involvement and moderation in online youth communities is a topic of current debate, especially in learning environments and youth-based community interventions. In this paper, we explore the effects of adult moderation in an international online youth community. We examine youth behavior in three forums, one with high adult moderation, one with medium, and one with low. Results indicate that adult moderation has a mixed effect on youth participation, interconnectivity, and language attributes online. Participation and interconnectivity are highest in medium moderation group. However, use of apologetic language is highest in high moderation groups and feedback is highest in low moderation groups. Together, these results suggest that moderation will influence the structure of discussion, in both positive and negative ways. Design of online communities should therefore take these results into account.

Tackjin Kim, Vivek Anand, Robert Kraut
Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract: Conversation is a critical element to the success of online communities, both for the communities as a whole and the individual members. Yet conversations often fail: Forty percent of potential threadstarting messages in Usenet groups receive no response. When this happens, those who are trying to get information, support, or discussion from a group receive no benefit from their efforts. This paper presents a multimethod series of studies into community responsiveness to two rhetorical strategies: selfdisclosing introductions and making requests. Introductions signal legitimacy and commitment, and requests reduce community effort by making clear what is needed. An analysis of a longitudinal sample of 40,931 messages from 99 Usenet groups shows that introductions referencing lurking and a personal connection to the topic of discussion increase the likelihood of getting a reply. So does making requests. Machine learning detects introductions and requests automatically within the text. A pair of experiments in which introductions and requests are added or removed from previously posted messages and reposted to Usenet groups shows that introductions referencing the group history cause an increase in reply counts, but requests do not. The research will inform the design of an automatic intervention triggered at the time messages are written that makes suggestions for strengthening rhetorical strategies when the community is unlikely to respond.

Bernardo A. Huberman
HP labs

Keywords: Facebook, time, patterns, social networks

Abstract: We have analyzed the fully-anonymized headers of 362 million messages exchanged by 4.2 million users of Facebook, an online social network of college students, during a 26 month interval. The data reveal a number of strong daily and weekly regularities and seasonal variations which provide insights into the time use and social lives of college students. We also examined how factors such as school affiliation and informal online "friend" lists affect the observed behavior and temporal patterns. Finally, we show that Facebook users appear to be clustered by school with respect to their temporal messaging patterns. Our results identify previously undetected patterns - and provide large-scale, quantitative evidence in support of existing claims - regarding messaging, studying and socializing among college students.

Anatoliy Gruzd
University of Illinois

Abstract: Online communities are creating a growing legacy of texts. These texts record conversation, knowledge exchange, and variation in topic and orientation as groups grow, mature, and decline; they represent a rich history of group interaction and an opportunity to explore the purpose and development of online communities. The problem is how to approach and make sense of the vast amount of data stored by these communities and to use that information for some useful outcome. In this paper we use automated processes, including natural language processing, to explore the case of text accumulated from bulletin board postings from eight iterations of an online class. The paper presents work done on creating and refining the natural language processing procedures used to examine these data, and a description of results so far from these examinations.

Marc Smith
Microsoft Research

Keywords: Usenet, reputation, persistent conversations, threaded conversations, surveillance, social accounting data, newsgroups, online community, community tools

Abstract: How are reflections of computer-mediated behavior used and consumed by participants of threaded conversation repositories? While millions of people contribute messages to repositories like Usenet newsgroups and web based discussion boards, most interfaces to these systems lack tools to reflect the history of participants' behavior. The Netscan system publishes aggregated patterns of behavioral histories of contributors to Usenet newsgroup discussions via the World Wide Web. Through a content analysis of 1,454 messages containing the string 'netscan.research', we explore the ways these reports about newsgroups, authors, and threads are invoked in conversations taking place within newsgroups themselves. Reflections of participant behaviors can act as powerful tools for researchers interested in studying the range of variation of social roles that appear in such environments. These reflections are also of interest and value to the participants themselves who can make use of summaries of their own and others' behaviors as a form of reputation system which can guide the selection and evaluation of content and provide motivation for contribution. We find that users adapt to the availability of behavioral reflections by increasing competitiveness and scrutinizing data about other participants in order to understand unfamiliar users and newsgroups. Counterintuitively, users modify their behaviors not by opting out of the system or obscuring their identities but rather work to manage their reputation through increased attention to their participation and by maintaining a consistent identifier to prevent reputation fragmentation.

Karen Baker
University of California San Diego

Abstract: We ask, how does the organization of a technology building project impact collaboration with social scientists? We identify four elements that have structured collaborative engagements of social scientists within information infrastructure design projects. The elements we identify are (i) the state of the project relative to its development timeline; (ii) the time of initiation with social science, (iii) the participation type for social science; and (iv) the details of the involvement. Drawing from ethnographic research and grounded theory methodology, this research is based on comparison of three information infrastructure projects. We argue that the varying configurations of these elements substantially influence the possibilities for social science contributions to each project. In planning future engagements of social science within infrastructure projects careful consideration of such elements will serve to open up engagement options beyond a frequently encountered 'response mode.' Our goal is to enrich and deepen awareness of modes of engagement where social research is participatory.

Stewart A. Sutton
The Aerospace Corporation

Abstract: The creation of a knowledgesharing corporationone that discourages knowledge hoarding but encourages sharing across internal and external divisionsis a goal which many organizations strive to achieve through explicit policies and procedures. Formal communities is a key design strategy that organizational architects often use to promote knowledge sharing and interaction. An 11month ethnographic investigation with 10 informants was conducted in an organization in the nascent stages of implementing formal communities of practice. Each informant was shadowed for three and a half days. Contrary to the common characterization of communities of practice in the workplace as the dominant social arrangement through which work is accomplished, our data revealed that there exists a range of identifiable and distinct connectors, commonalities or affinities, that facilitate the formation of diverse groups in an organization. The seven major types of connectors we found were: work home, company, common work role, formal community, professional, private and social. Each connector provides a purposeful way for workers to not only accomplish their work tasks more effectively, but to legitimately cultivate social constructs such as communities.

Achim Dannecker and Ulrike Lechner
University of Bundeswehr Munich

Abstract: Virtual communities of patients provide healthrelated information and mutual support for their members. This paper presents a structured analysis of virtual communities of patients and different online and offline integration principles. We analyse the success factors of virtual communities of patients and in particular the demand for new electronic services that improve the online and offline integration.

Deborah Fields, Michael Giang and Maria Quintero
University of California

Abstract: . Virtual communities have become a central part of children's social landscape. Some of them, called multiplayer online games, invite thousands of children to join and play together. Their online interactions are structured around socializing, shopping, and emailings. At occasion, particular events such as player revolts, virus outbreaks, or organized ostracism bring together the geographically dispersed players of such online communities and constitute what we call community events. As a case in point, we focus on Whypox, a virtual epidemic that took place in Whyville.net, a teen online community with over 1.5 million registered players ages 816. To understand how events such as Whypox impact life in online communities, we analyze tracking data, chat content, newspaper postings, survey and interview descriptions and play interactions. We discuss implications of our findings in relation to Gee's (2003) notion of affinity groups, propose design parameters for designing community events, and outline educational applications.

Karsten D. Wolf
University of Bremen

Keywords: Communities of practice, mmorpg, addiction, world of warcraft, community design

Abstract: Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG) have become increasingly popular over the past few years. The most successful MMORPG "World of Warcraft" to date has 7.5 million subscribers. The forerunners of MMORPG, Multi User Dungeons (MUD), have long been attributed as a place to build and maintain communities, providing a social space (Turkle 1995, Bruckman 1998), but never found their way into the mainstream. Now with millions of people playing MMORPG it is of interest if these environments are providing new means to build meaningful online communities, or if they are games specially designed to create an addicted user base. Two questions are answered based on an online survey with 1100 World of Warcraft users:

• are MMORPG a supporting environment for communities of practice?
• is there a danger to become addicted to the game while trying to become a part of the community?

MMORPG seem to support the creation of communities of practice to some extent, although players have to play 20 hours or more per week to feel a strong sense of belonging. Especially members with an aspiration for knowledge need to invest a large amount of time to become experts because of the game's size and complexity and run risk to become addicted. The big appeal of MMORPG from a CoP point of view seems to be, that even new players can experience a feel of community in the game. It is questionable, though, if WoW supports all aspects of a community of practice.

MinHo Ryu
Information and Communications University, Korea

Keywords: Video UCC, User participation, Technology Acceptance Model, Motivation model

Abstract: User's participation in creating contents is essential for building future multimediabased services and related cyber communities. Recently, due to the popularization of camcorder builtin digital gadgets and the Internet, users can create UserCreated Contents (UCC) video clips beyond text and images more easily. However, the enduser adoption of video UCC services is far behind technological and market development even though the UCC services may only function successfully when the user's actual participation is widely activated. At present, only a few studies have explored how UCC services should be designed to encourage users to participate. Therefore, this study proposes and tests a new integrated theoretical framework of Technology Acceptance Model and Motivation Model for user's participation behavior on video UCC service. The results indicate that all the simultaneous direct links postulated between Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Perceived Ease of Participation, Perceived Trust and Intention to Participation in video UCC are significant. This study gives some implications for practitioners of video UCC service regarding how to design services that effectively motivate users to utilize them.

Anjo Anjewierden
U of Twente

Abstract: There is a multitude of very complex and interconnected political, socioeconomic and environmental issues facing our globalizing society. To address these, topic communities of experts and stakeholders collaborating closely for a longer period of time are essential. These topic communities often need to be created ad hoc and urgently, however, while demanding a unique mix of experience and expertise of their members. Thus, the formation of such communities is far from trivial. Existing scientific and political structures do not suffice to provide the right experts and stakeholders in time. We present a sociotechnical approach for topic community member selection, analyzing large corpora of blog posts to identify combinations of topics and bloggers relevant to the goals of the topic community. The technical basis for the approach is the tOKo tool for text analysis. The social aspect consists of a sequence of steps of human interpretation of the blog analysis results that tOKo produces. This sociotechnical approach forms a ''pragmatic funnel'', producing a set of candidate topic community members likely to be relevant. We illustrate our approach with a realistic case.

Richard Alterman
Brandeis University

Keywords: Analysis tools, representational work, wiki

Abstract: In recent years wikis have enabled people to collaborate online as a community of practice by allowing content to be modified freely by any user. This platform has proven to be very successful despite its uncon ventional "anarchistic" and sometimes chaotic organization - Wikipedia being the most famous example. When people contribute to a wiki web site their work takes place within a representational system comprised of mul tiple distributed representations such as the wiki pages and external web sites related to the wiki topic. How much of the collaborative work in volves transferring information between the different representations? How does the collaborative work emerge within the system and how is it used by the participants to accomplish their goal? We present WikiPlayer, a tool to visualize and replay the entire revision history of related wiki pages as they collectively evolve over time. The player allows us to track each user's contribution to a set of wiki pages, review the state of each page at any given moment in the history, and easily generate statistics helpful in analyzing the collaborative community of practice. The tool can be used to identify the collaborative work patterns that develop from the emergent interaction between the structure of wiki pages and the organiza tion of the participants' representational work.

Andrew B. Whinston
University of Texas

Abstract: Recently useroriented online sharing communities have seen explosive growth (e.g., YouTube and Flicker). Two notable features of these communities set them apart from traditional online message-based communities (e.g. online forums and chat rooms). First, there is no or little "verbal" communication between users. Second, users have much looser connections and no social ties, so that communications are mainly driven by the observation of other users' activities. The new communication features can be best summarized as a Ballotbox Communication (BBC), an enumerating mechanism that aggregates individual choices, opinion or experience, and in doing so, effectively enabling a new medium to reveal the interests of the mass population. In this paper, we propose, construct, and discuss the new BBC framework. Business issues and potential research directions are also discussed.

Andrew Clement
University of Toronto

Abstract: Recently, personal and communitywide wireless Internet networks have been receiving a lot of attention for their potential opportunities. Many of these opportunities stem from sharing connections to the Internet. However, while many benefits are claimed for these services, such as broader coverage, improved access, and lower cost, relatively little is known about how people regard sharing wireless Internet services. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this research investigated the range of attitudes towards such sharing among urban wireless users. Our research revealed generally positive feelings about the benefits of sharing, especially when using others' signals, but serious reservations about making signals open for use by strangers. These findings have implications for developing both communitywide infrastructure and local, ad hoc systems. They also provide the basis for several design features that would promote sharing, including security measures, privacy protection, cost reduction, bandwidth prioritization, and reciprocal notification.

Neeti Gupta
Microsoft

Keywords: Social networks, public, space, cafe, third places

Abstract: A growing number of cities have announced plans or are in the early stages of deploying municipal broadband wireless networks; Muni WiFi. These projects promise untethered Internet access in private, public, and semipublic spaces. While there is a significant body of research addressing whether fixed Internet use increases, decreases, or supplements the ways people engage in residential and workplace settings, few studies have addressed how the use of wireless broadband in public and semipublic spaces influences social life. Ubiquitous WiFi adds a new dimension to the debate over how the Internet may influence the structure of community. It is unclear if wireless Internet use in public spaces will facilitate greater engagement with copresent others, or encourage a form of "public privatism." This paper reports the findings of an exploratory, ethnographic study that examined how WiFi was used and influenced social interactions in a series of WiFi coffee shops. Observations were drawn from four different settings; paid and free WiFi cafes in Boston and Seattle. this study found contrasting uses for wireless Internet and competing implications for community. Two types of practices, typified in the behaviors of "true mobiles" and "place makers," offer divergent futures for how Muni WiFi may influence the structure of social relationships in public spaces.

Lada Adamic
University of Michigan

Abstract: Research is proceeding to design new systems and algorithms for online communities, by taking into account their social network characteristics. However, differing network structures and dynamics will affect possible algorithms that attempt to make use of these networks. We lack an understanding of these impacts. In this paper, we present the CommunityNetSimulator (CNS), a simulator that enables the exploration of various network models with social network analysis techniques that are of particular relevance to online communities, especially helpseeking communities. CNS provides substantial capabilities to understand network formation and dynamics and to consider new augmentations for those networks.

M. Lynne Markus
Bentley College

Abstract: Two literatures on virtual communities coexist with little overlap: the "communities" literature, which focuses on social and psychological processes, and the "environments" literature, which focuses on the technology used by members of online communities. The purpose of this paper is to build a case for drawing these two literatures together through a review of relevant literature and a comparison of four virtual communities that target the same membership but differ dramatically in technological features. The findings provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that the technological features of online environments are linked to the social processes observed in them. Environmental or ecological psychology offers a promising framework for the theoretical integration of the two literatures on virtual communities.

Wei Zhang
UMass Boston

Abstract: Trust plays an important role in facilitating knowledge sharing, but few studies have systematically investigated trust development in online communities, a popular tool for knowledge sharing. This paper presents one such exploratory study that investigated how knowledge seekers form trust toward knowledge contributors in electronic networks of practice. Knowledge seekers' perceptions of knowledge contributors' ability and benevolence are argued to mediates the trust development formation; and three bases on which perceptions of ability and benevolence are formed - cognition, affection, and situation - were identified. An integrative model was developed and a preliminary test reported with encouraging results. Implications of the findings were also discussed.

Marlous Agterberg
Free University of Amsterdam

Abstract: This paper analyzes the influence of embeddedness of networks of practice on the value of such networks in supporting the exchange of distributed knowledge. Based on a case study on networks of practice in an international development organization, we found that embeddedness in practice and social embeddedness of networks are both important determinants of this value. Different communication media used within a network of practice are found to influence such embeddedness: face-to-face interaction positively influences social embeddedness, whereas email interaction is a determinant of embeddedness in practice. Online discussion groups have an indirect influence on embeddedness; they provide insight into relevant subjects and help locate relevant knowledge. Furthermore, we found that the use of these discussion groups (a public medium) leads to more use of email and face-to-face interaction (private media) over time.

Laura Anna Ripamonti
University of Milan

Keywords: Community informatics, deliberative community networks, participatory processes, egovernance

Abstract: The increasing shift of attention from egovernment to egovernance, even at the local level, requires technological solutions designed to support deliberative processes. We believe that to answer the request for local governance it is necessary to put at stake the background accumulated by community networks for undertaking the development (the design, implementation and testing) of a sociotechnical, computerenabled, trusted environment for eparticipation enriched with deliberative tools. We call this environment Deliberative Community Networks, in order to stress that its main goal is to overcome the intrinsic limits of community and civic networks, by introducing deliberative facilities that provide support to the decisionmaking processes. The paper presents the conceptual framework behind the design of Deliberative Community Networks, their logical architecture and a first prototype developed for supporting public dialog in the occasion of the 2006 Municipal Elections in Milan, Italy. The feedbacks from this experience, presented in the conclusions, are the input for the next release of the system currently under development.

John Bowers
Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Abstract: This paper reports a field study of radio amateurs. It details their communicative practices, interests and technologies. Radio amateurs are taken as a perspicuous instance of an amateur and voluntary community with the aim of informing ITC design for communities. We characterise radio amateurs as being essentially motivated by the challenges of radio propagation, of understanding it and taking advantage of it for communicative purposes. The challenges of being a radio amateur are lifelong, detailed, diverse and seemingly inexhaustible. Far from being an obstacle to the formation of an enduring community, these features enable it to thrive. Based on these observations, we propose that design for communities should recognise the core challenges and contingencies addressed by that community and engage in design practices which themselves are rich in challenge.

Annette Bobrik
Technical University Berlin

Keywords: Dynamic network analysis, broker, social networks, communities, formation, evolution, visualization

Abstract: Understanding structures and processes of virtual communication networks can help to improve knowledge sharing and collaboration in a corporate setting. A widespread research method in that domain is Social Network Analysis. However, SNA only considers a summarized picture of the final structures of vir tual community networks. It does not focus the understanding of the actors' under lying dynamic processes of structural evolvement. To overcome these shortcomings, we propose a methodology of dynamic network analysis based on small time windows and animations of network evolvement. Based on that method we introduce the measure Brokering Activity to identify persons which have actively contributed to community formation. In a study of corporate email traffic, we compare this dynamic measure with current measures to show that it uncovers important networking agents, previously ignored. By plot ting Brokering Activity over time, further insights about the dynamics of network ing can be achieved.

Harald Tuckermann
University of St. Gallen

Keywords: Hybrid communication, relationship concepts, relational scaffolding

Abstract: In this empirical paper, we explore the recursive relationship of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and social relations in organizations, guided by two questions: Which typical patterns of relating occur in organizational contexts in hybrid communication? How are organizations as communities of relational practice affected in these contexts? Scholars so far have mainly explored the social dimension of CMC by comparing it to face-to-face interaction, whereas the opposite view of a relational perspective on CMC appears remains underresearched. Building on the concept of conversational scaffolding, we propose a model of relational scaffolding as a guiding frame for observation. The empirical findings stem from problemcentered interviews in four organizations to depict the participants' narratives of their daily CMC experiences at the workplace. We present our results as patterns and understandings regarding hybrid communication in organizations. Thus, our study explores specific organizational practices in which the recursive interrelation between CMC and relationships is considered. By means of the 'relational scaffolding model of CMC', this research contributes to our understanding of community processes that emerge in hybrid communication settings. We conclude by critically reflecting our methodology and pointing towards directions of future research.

Alex (Sandy) Pentland
MIT

Keywords: Advice Networks, Influence, Innovation, Human Dynamics, Social Networks, Diffusion, Centrality, Rural Development.

Abstract: Finding the influential people in a community is key to diffusion process of technological innovations, as well as other kinds of products. This information is traditionally obtained through costly ethnographic studies which are not necessarily efficient. We explore the use of sociometric information on the flow of advice as a supplement to socioeconomic and demographic variables to determine the influential members of a community, under conditions where conventional methods may fail.

An empirical study of these ideas using data on a community of Costa Rican coffee growers is reported. It turns out that the flow of advice captured by a generalized measure of eigenvector centrality, controlling for age and innovativeness using a logistic regression method, produced a good predictor of the influential members of the community. In terms of the positive predicting value our results suggest that we can double the precision (for this particular data set we got 91.66% vs. 45% obtained by the conventional methods).

Liezl Lambrecht Coetzee
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

Keywords: Internet & Communications Technologies (ICTs); Information Society; Social Transformation; Digital Divide; Social Inclusion; Real Access; Public Access

Abstract: The Information Age of the early 21st Century is in the process of undergoing dramatic processes of social transformation, which may be thought of as 'evolutionary' in nature and extent, brought about by the proliferation of Internet and Communications Technologies (ICTs). This involves transformation at individual, community, as well as broader society levels, as webs of connections stretch across the globe in the fast evolving Network Society. The rapid revolution of computer-mediated communications (CMCs) has significant implications for those without access, creating new divides between "information haves and have nots". The severe extent to which access to new communication technologies is skewed across what has become known as the Digital Divide means that the disconnected face ever greater exclusion from global information flows.

Bridging the divide to effectively extend inclusion to a greater portion of the world's citizens requires a comprehensive approach promoting 'real access' and social inclusion, which involves more than just physical access to technology. An example of a bridging initiative providing free public access to disadvantaged communities in the City of Cape Town is examined with respect to such real access criteria, to note the degree to which social transformation through ICTs can be extended across the economic and class divides underpinning the digital.

Venkata Ratnadeep Suri
research team

Keywords: Lateral connectivity, rural telecommunications, Information and Communication Technologies, rural development

Abstract: Communications technology has long occupied the minds of development theorists as a vital development tool. However, their thinking has had a decided longdistance bias. The fascination in the 1970s and 1980s with the development potential of satellites, the definitive longdistance technology, is especially revealing of this bias. In general, the debate about technology choices tends to get framed as that between one long-distance technology and another, e.g., flexibility of satellites versus the rigidity of terrestrial systems. The possibility of deploying communication technology to enhance local communications is not even given a thought. This long-distance bias in technology deployment is reflective of a deep-rooted assumption about the development process that connectivity to the outside world will modernize isolated backward areas. This paper examines three projects that privilege local connectivity over long-distance connections to show how the long-distance bias in development projects can be corrected.

Grace M. Chiu
University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract: In this paper, we will apply Oakes' (1992) technical, normative, and political dimensions of school reform to the case of the Computer Clubhouse, a community technology center, to illustrate how the barriers to change in after-school settings are similar to that in schools. We were concerned with the need to help young people become more technologically fluent, particularly in their ability to computer program. Our analysis builds on two years of observation and community development at the Computer Clubhouse, where programming had initially not taken root. In our discussion, we will focus on the impacts of the normative and technical aspects of change, such as the introduction of a new programming environment oriented towards media production, and the increased amount of mentor support.