14,985 research outputs found

    Participant Network Patterns in Enhancing Online Community Interactivity

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    Social media is having an increasing impact on businesses. In particular, the explosive growth of online brand communities has attracted organizations and marketers’ attentions. However, despite the increasing importance of online community for marketing, it is noticed that relatively few of them are successful in attracting community members and enhancing interactivity. In this study, we argue that it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding regarding how the community members participate in the communal context and interact with each other, and thereby the community interactivity can be continued. To this end, we collected a large amount of data from an online discussion forum where we found that the participants were highly interactive across the discussion topics, thus forming robust communities. Currently, the data analysis pertaining to this study is work in progress, but we will be in a position to offer more in-depth analysis of the rich findings that the research has generated by the time of the conference

    The Team Balancing Act - Enhancing Knowledge - Building Activity in On-Line Learning Communities

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    Online learning in the university sector is a given. Constructivist views of learning (often team based) and the notion of knowledge-building, mediated through the use of ICTs seemingly address many of the imperatives to equip individuals for emergent knowledge-age work practice. While teamwork has many perceived advantages, teams also inexplicably fail despite the apparent quality of the participants. Teams are successful when members address what is a relatively narrow range of actions. However, even within this limited range of actions individuals demonstrate definite preferences towards certain activities and roles. This paper reports on the findings from a study that investigated if knowledge-building activity can be enhanced in tertiary education CSCL environments through the use of groups balanced by Team Role Preference (Margerison & McCann, 1995, 1998). The study found that higher quality knowledge-building activity was more likely to occur in balanced groups than in random groups. The analysis of data revealed that a diversity of ideas was more likely to emerge from within balanced groups than from within random groups particularly when the random groups were heavily skewed towards one team role preference. This provided a compelling reason for explaining why balanced groups may lead to better knowledge-building activity

    Knowledge Society Network: Toward a dynamic, sustained network for building knowledge

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    The Knowledge Society Network (KSN) “takes advantage of new knowledge media to maximize and democratize society’s knowledge-­‐creating capacity” (www.ikit.org/KSN). This article synthesizes the principles and designs of this network which were initiated over 15 years ago, and presents an exploratory study of interactions in the KSN over four years, elaborating different network structures and the potential of each for knowledge advancement. Four major sub-­‐network structures for participant and idea interaction are described, as reflected in social network analysis of discourse in the KSN. Strengths and weaknesses of work within each sub-­‐network were identified with suggestions for creating a more dynamic, sustained network for knowledge advancement

    Exploring the relationship between customer participation and online brand community and consumer loyalty

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    The popularity of online brand communities has maintained the close link between consumers and brands and it encourages consumers to actively participate in online platforms. From this emerges intentions to achieve social and functional goals, leading to the question: How is loyalty affected by online participation? Based on a constructivist perspective, empirical data were generated through in-depth interviews to explore millennial’s level of participation in online communities and the extent to which it affects their loyalty to the brand and the community in the fashion industry. The study provides a conceptual framework that links a set of online participation characteristics contingent to different participatory motives. The study proposed four main customer participatory behavioural traits (brand identification, interactivity, media valence and perceived community sentiment) linked to consumers’ perception towards a brand in the fashion sector. The main findings reveal how the four categories impact the level of customer loyalty. These key categories are explored to create a framework for future research in this area, and further contribute to the field of online brand engagement, particularly in the fashion industry

    Reservoir hill and audiences for online interactive drama

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    This paper analyses the interactive experiences constructed for users of the New Zealand online interactive drama Reservoir Hill (2009, 2010), focusing both on the nature and levels of engagement which the series provided to users and the difficulties of audience research into this kind of media content. The series itself provided tightly prescribed forms of interactivity across multiple platforms, allowing forms of engagement that were greatly appreciated by its audience overall but actively explored only by a small proportion of users. The responses from members of the Reservoir Hill audience suggests that online users themselves are still learning the nature of, and constraints on, their engagements with various forms of online interactive media. This paper also engages with issue of how interactivity itself is defined, the difficulties of both connecting with audience members and securing timely access to online data, and the challenges of undertaking collaborative research with media producers in order to gain access to user data

    Massive Open Online Courses as affinity spaces for connected learning: Exploring effective learning interactions in one massive online community

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    This paper describes a participatory online culture – Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration (CLMOOC) – and asks how its ethos of reciprocity and creative playfulness occurs. By analysing Twitter interactions over a four-week period, we conclude that this is due to the supportive nature of participants, who describe themselves as belonging to, or connected with, the community. We suggest that Gee’s concept of an affinity space is an appropriate model for CLMOOC and ask how this might be replicated in a higher education setting
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