Online communities and their evaluation: creation of a method to assist Online Community Managers to evaluate the performance of their own communities: executive summary

Online Communities have existed for a number of years but evaluation methods allowing their managers to make decisions are limited. These decisions can take the form of resource prioritisation, choice of specific future development areas or termination of Online Communities. This research document introduces a novel 4-step method that can be used to assist this decision-making. A number of interpretations as to what is meant by the term ucommunity" are presented from a variety of disciplines before moving onto the newer concept of "Online Community". The literature does not provide one common meaning for these terms so a definition appropriate for this study was proposed. In this case an Online Community is defined as "a social or business space, supported by technology and Internet tools, in which people with common interests, objectives or values can meet and satisfy their needs". Next, current evaluation techniques were reviewed. From this, and from responses from interviews with Online Community Managers, it was clear that a new evaluation method that could answer business questions in a non-resource intensive manner was required. 4 requirements were identified as key to developing a new evaluation method that would provide benefit to the Online Community practitioners: " It must be simple to implement with minimum use of already limited resources " It must be flexible to allow custornisation for each unique Online Community " It should allow action to be taken to improve the day-to-day management " The measures collected must help answer business questions. To enable an efficient process to be utilised it was proposed to use a classification of Online Communities to reduce the complexity of the problem and to condense large amounts of information into a manageable format. After establishing that no existing classification was appropriate a new one with 4 classes was developed, based on data from literature and interviews with Online Community practitioners. After simplifying the problem by the use of the classification above, attention was turned to generating a new method that would meet the requirements identified previously. This was achieved by extracting key aspects from 3 specific techniques and frameworks, namely The Performance Prism, Performance Measurement Questionnaire and the Extended Web Assessment Method. The resulting method takes account of multiple stakeholders, facilitates definition of measures and recognises the use of perception data in relation to performance evaluation. Supporting material, in the form of flowcharts and templates, was also created to enable the customised measures to be developed in a rapid and resource efficient manner. The method was tested with two Online Communities and the results discussed. Feedback was captured from the participants and changes were subsequently made to improve the method. In addition it became clear that there was a need to explicitly address the "health" of the community aspect in the supporting material. From this research it is clear that the performance of Online Communities can be considered on many levels through this 4-step evaluation method; it takes account of the aspects that are important to a specific community, in a rapid manner. It also confirms that it is possible to engage stakeholders in a dialogue about Online Community performance, thus providing data from them to facilitate future decisions

Business information systems design for Uganda's economic development: the case of SMES in northern Uganda

This study was conducted on the premise that if quality business information is provided to business enterprises, socio-economic transformation could be achieved. The study emanated from the documented problem where business enterprises in northern Uganda were found to depend on "word of mouth" rather than any meaningful formal mechanism for accessing information efficiently. The aim of the study was, therefore, to design an information system for northern Uganda business enterprises. The study makes use of document analysis, questionnaires and interviews. The Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs), information providers and business policy-makers in northern Uganda constituted the population of the study. The data which was collected was edited and analysed to produce graphs, charts and percentages. The main findings indicate that business activities in northern Uganda are diverse - covering almost the entire sector of the economy. The SMEs need information on finance/capital/loans, local markets, business management skills, appropriate technologies, business competitors and security. They are lagging behind in using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). There is a lack of familiarity with changing technology - especially the Internet. Although the SMEs are making a fundamental contribution to Uganda's economy, they face serious challenges, such as insecurity, inadequate electricity, lack of trained information professionals and appropriate technology to access electronic information. The findings further indicate that respondents want business information to be selective to address their needs. The study concludes that the SMEs need an efficient, effective mechanism to provide the required business information. Hence, it is recommended that a business information system (BIS) design be implemented to address their needs. The BIS should provide business information in terms of legal, technical and economic information as well as contact information and management skills. Information should be processed by means of radio broadcasts, the telephone, short text messages, posters, online and CD-ROM formats - as required by the SMEs managers. To facilitate access, BIS should have telephone services; Internet-based services; online small business workshops; business start up assistant; and Talk to BIS services. BIS should have a flexible interface.INFORMATION SCIENCEDLITT ET PHIL (INF SCIENCE