NEW DIRECTIONS IN ONLINE COMMUNITY RESEARCH

Information Systems researchers have studied multiple forms of online communities for decades. Significant progress has been made in addressing research questions such as how and when individuals are motivated to contribute knowledge in online settings. Yet, not only are important questions unanswered—such as why online communities succeed or fail—but also there still remains disagreement on the basic definition of online community. Furthermore, as the diversity of users and uses of online media continues to increase, IS researchers can now ask and answer different questions. For example, advances in social computing, mobile computing, and social media support new forms of online communities. In this panel we will propose and debate the direction of an online community research agenda for the next decade and beyond

Breaking the Silence: The Role of Online Community in the Transition to Motherhood

This study presents a grounded theory of the tensions that exist in the transition to motherhood. More specifically, this study investigated both the tensions that emerged within interactions in online communities as well as the communicative practices community members used to manage tensions. Using a qualitative grounded theory approach, interactions from an online community were analyzed. Results from this study suggest that new mothers use online communities to communicate about challenges around the transition to motherhood, highlighting tensions around (a) expertise and experiences, (b) mother-led and baby-led practices, and (c) expectations and experience. Community members develop a range of communicative strategies to make sense of these tensions. Finding suggest two significant directions for research on studying online mothering communities: (a) the importance of examining underlying communication processes and (b) examining the nature of tensions that arise in these communities to understand the role online community plays in the lives of new mothers. As expectations for motherhood continue to change and as mothers increasingly turn to the Internet for seeking information and community, research needs to continue to devote attention to understanding the importance of this community during the transition to motherhood

Considering the Community of Inquiry Framework in Online Engineering Education – A Literature Review

The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has gained considerable attention as a theoretical and methodological means to understand and facilitate online learning experiences. Following calls for more studies investigating disciplinary differences and blended learning environments, this semi-systematic literature review summarizes and synthesizes CoI’s application in online engineering education, to provide a base for informed judgments about its potential for educational research and practice in this particular context. Based on 22 reviewed articles, we show that CoI is a promising framework not only as an evaluation tool for online and blended learning environments in engineering education but also for the design of online engineering courses that want to build their learning design on a collaborative constructivist view of learning. However, compared to the richness of the general literature on CoI and in other fields, the utilization of CoI in engineering education is still very new and appears to still be in a junior state. Accordingly, we suggest several directions for improvement and further research

Testing the Waters: Local Users, Sea Level Rise, and the Productive Usability of Interactive Geovisualizations

This paper explores the potential for technical communicators to employ usability research with risk-based interactive geovisualization technologies as a method of cultivating critical rhetorics of risk communication for local communities. Through integrating theories from usability studies and risk communication, I offer some new directions for thinking about the productive usability of online, participatory technologies that promote citizen engagement in science. I argue that the key tenets of productive usability afford technical communicators the opportunity to build localized knowledge of risk in real, local users, which in turn improves the capacity for a community and its stakeholders to more effectively communicate risk

First Plant Cell Atlas symposium report

The Plant Cell Atlas (PCA) community hosted a virtual symposium on December 9 and 10, 2021 on single cell and spatial omics technologies. The conference gathered almost 500 academic, industry, and government leaders to identify the needs and directions of the PCA community and to explore how establishing a data synthesis center would address these needs and accelerate progress. This report details the presentations and discussions focused on the possibility of a data synthesis center for a PCA and the expected impacts of such a center on advancing science and technology globally. Community discussions focused on topics such as data analysis tools and annotation standards; computational expertise and cyber-infrastructure; modes of community organization and engagement; methods for ensuring a broad reach in the PCA community; recruitment, training, and nurturing of new talent; and the overall impact of the PCA initiative. These targeted discussions facilitated dialogue among the participants to gauge whether PCA might be a vehicle for formulating a data synthesis center. The conversations also explored how online tools can be leveraged to help broaden the reach of the PCA (i.e., online contests, virtual networking, and social media stakeholder engagement) and decrease costs of conducting research (e.g., virtual REU opportunities). Major recommendations for the future of the PCA included establishing standards, creating dashboards for easy and intuitive access to data, and engaging with a broad community of stakeholders. The discussions also identified the following as being essential to the PCA’s success: identifying homologous cell-type markers and their biocuration, publishing datasets and computational pipelines, utilizing online tools for communication (such as Slack), and user-friendly data visualization and data sharing. In conclusion, the development of a data synthesis center will help the PCA community achieve these goals by providing a centralized repository for existing and new data, a platform for sharing tools, and new analytical approaches through collaborative, multidisciplinary efforts. A data synthesis center will help the PCA reach milestones, such as community-supported data evaluation metrics, accelerating plant research necessary for human and environmental health

The Renaissance of Black Phosphorus

One hundred years after its first successful synthesis in the bulk form in 1914, black phosphorus (black P) was recently rediscovered from the perspective of a two-dimensional (2D) layered material, attracting tremendous interest from condensed matter physicists, chemists, semiconductor device engineers and material scientists. Similar to graphite and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), black P has a layered structure but with a unique puckered single layer geometry. Because the direct electronic band gap of thin film black P can be varied from 0.3 to around 2 eV, depending on its film thickness, and because of its high carrier mobility and anisotropic in-plane properties, black P is promising for novel applications in nanoelectronics and nanophotonics different from graphene and TMDs. Black P as a nanomaterial has already attracted much attention from researchers within the past year. Here, we offer our opinions on this emerging material with the goal of motivating and inspiring fellow researchers in the 2D materials community and the broad readership of PNAS to discuss and contribute to this exciting new field. We also give our perspectives on future 2D and thin film black P research directions, aiming to assist researchers coming from a variety of disciplines who are desirous of working in this exciting research field.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, perspective article, appeared online in PNA

Generating new directions for reducing dog and koala interactions : A social marketing formative research study

Koala populations are declining. Conservation of this Australian icon requires a whole of community approach. To effect change, researchers and practitioners must effectively engage the target community, be open to different ways of thinking, and be receptive to new ideas and directions that match the times. This article reports the application of social marketing to decrease dog and koala interactions. A comprehensive program of formative research including a systematic literature review, expert interviews, online surveys and co-design sessions were employed to identify novel ideas and audience-focused strategies that can be applied to reduce dog and koala interactions. Results indicate that dog owners seek a non-koala focussed, dog training program that shows them what to do and a targeted approach alerting them to koala presence in addition to education and awareness efforts favoured by experts. This study indicates the need for more human centred research, which has been absent to date, given identified incongruence between expert and community views. We propose that audience-focused behaviour management strategies will, in turn, increase target audience adoption, campaign reach and promote effective community engagement with programs

Teaching evolution as an interdisciplinary science: concepts, theory, and network infrastructure for educational design research

Evolution is an interdisciplinary science. Evolutionary theory is routinely employed across the overlapping domains of the natural, social, and computational sciences, as a high level generalization of processes of change within complex adaptive systems. Despite this interdisciplinary character of evolutionary science, evolution education remains almost exclusively the purview of the biology classroom within general education curricula around the world. This thesis engages conceptual clarification and educational design research to map and explore the educational potential of teaching evolution as the interdisciplinary science that it is. Beginning with a foray into student conceptions of the capacities for and causes of cooperation in chimpanzees and human children, it is argued that research in comparative psychology provides a fertile entry point for engaging the interdisciplinarity of evolutionary sciences. A considered analysis of persistent challenges within traditional approaches to biological evolution education then outlines core conceptual issues and pedagogical strategies for an interdisciplinary approach. This conceptual work supports the exploratory development of two novel directions in evolution education. First, in human evolution, a new toolkit is presented to engage students in causal mapping of the many processes and information streams that have shaped human origins. Second, an interdisciplinary approach to community-based school improvement has been developed that empowers youth to become drivers of valued change within their school community, while challenging them to reflect on the evolutionary theoretical context for such cultural change. Future directions in research are discussed within the context of the OpenEvo learning hub, an online educational innovation and design research lab to drive continued development in this space

Crowding out the Archivist? Implications of online user participation for archival theory and practice.

This thesis charts a course through an emerging landscape of online user participation in archives, focusing upon user involvement at the point of practice known to professional archivists as archival description. Recent years have seen significant growth in participatory initiatives in the archive sector, and the application of Web 2.0 technologies — augmenting traditions of user engagement and volunteering — has been widely heralded as a new opportunity to ‘democratise’ archival practice. The study considers a spectrum of online initiatives which have sought to benefit from the skills or knowledge of diverse user groups: from mass participation ‘crowdsourcing’ transcription projects, via tagging and commenting functionalities added to traditional archive catalogues, to community engagement programmes which have attempted to build up multiple layers of narrative interpretation. The research was designed around three principal stakeholder groups, professionals, participants, and users, seeking to address three main research questions: • Does online user participation constitute an evolution or a revolution in archival practice and professionalism? • What contexts and circumstances motivate and sustain participation? • Who benefits from user participation in archival description? Two new analytical frameworks are presented as navigation aids for this exploration of participatory archives, taken from the perspective of professional archivists and of participants respectively. The discussion on users is necessarily more speculative, but concludes that realisation of the claims made for the transformative impact of online user participation is dependent upon a redefinition of archival use which is inclusive of both participation and the communication of meaning, in addition to the routine processes of information seeking. Future research directions are identified therefore which lie at the points of intersection between engagement (participation and use combined) and professional theory and practice