Emotional persistence in online chatting communities

How do users behave in online chatrooms, where they instantaneously read and write posts? We analyzed about 2.5 million posts covering various topics in Internet relay channels, and found that user activity patterns follow known power-law and stretched exponential distributions, indicating that online chat activity is not different from other forms of communication. Analysing the emotional expressions (positive, negative, neutral) of users, we revealed a remarkable persistence both for individual users and channels. I.e. despite their anonymity, users tend to follow social norms in repeated interactions in online chats, which results in a specific emotional "tone" of the channels. We provide an agent-based model of emotional interaction, which recovers qualitatively both the activity patterns in chatrooms and the emotional persistence of users and channels. While our assumptions about agent's emotional expressions are rooted in psychology, the model allows to test different hypothesis regarding their emotional impact in online communication.Comment: 34 pages, 4 main and 12 supplementary figure

Whispers in the Classroom

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedOnline backchannel chat rooms offer the potential to transform classroom learning in unexpected and powerful ways. However, the specific ways in which they can influence teaching pedagogy and learning opportunities are less well understood. Activities in a backchannel may include the dissemination of ideas, knowledge building, asking and answering questions, engaging in critical discourse, and sharing information and resources. This chapter describes a backchannel chat room that has taken place over multiple years in a large university student community. It explores unforeseen and exciting opportunities, as well as possible limitations, for designing teaching and learning practices to leverage this communication medium. With a deeper understanding of the opportunities and limitations of the backchannel, educators and instructional designers could transform the classroom experience from a passive lecture model to one of active, collaborative, and engaged knowledge production

Towards virtual communities on the Web: Actors and audience

We report about ongoing research in a virtual reality environment where visitors can interact with agents that help them to obtain information, to perform certain transactions and to collaborate with them in order to get some tasks done. Our environment models a theatre in our hometown. We discuss attempts to let this environment evolve into a theatre community where we do not only have goal-directed visitors, but also visitors that that are not sure whether they want to buy or just want information or visitors who just want to look around. It is shown that we need a multi-user and multiagent environment to realize our goals. Since our environment models a theatre it is also interesting to investigate the roles of performers and audience in this environment. For that reason we discuss capabilities and personalities of agents. Some notes on the historical development of networked communities are included

RFCs, MOOs, LMSs: Assorted Educational Devices\ud

This paper discusses implicit social consequences of four basic internet protocols. The results are then related to the field of computer-assisted teaching. An educational on-line community is described and compared to the emerging standard of web-based learning management.\u

When is a duck not a duck? When it is a Euro! Trust-based marketing communications in virtual communities

none3Ripubblicato in "Virtual technologies: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications" (a cura di J. Kisielnicki), New York: Information Sciences Reference, 2008G. GUIDO; PRETE I; D'ETTORRE RGuido, Gianluigi; Prete, MARIA IRENE; D'Ettorre, R

Someone Else is There:Presence,Embodiment and Aspects of Third Place Theory In World of Warcraft

Oldenburg\u27s (1999) theory of Third Place was used as a lens to determine whether World of Warcraft (WoW), a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), acts as a virtual third place where users go to engage in informal social interaction. Based on Shields\u27 (2003) seminal study on virtuality, WoW is examined as a liminality that exists between the physical realm and what exists in essence. Virtual communities exist on the threshold between the tangible and the iconic, creating a sort of liminality that allows us to feel them without actually having them present in a purely physical sense. Similarly, Third Places are examined as existing on the threshold between formal public life and private life. The study found that while WoW shares many aspects with Oldenburg\u27s Third Place, the theory as designed by the author does not stretch to accommodate the peculiarities of virtual places and the communities that exist within

Asynchronous video telephony for the Deaf

The South African Deaf community has very limited telephony options. They prefer to communicate in sign language, a visual medium. Realtime video over Internet Protocol is a promising option, but in reality, the quality is often not enough for the Deaf to be able to understand each other’s sign language. Furthermore, these applications were not design specifically for the Deaf. This paper introduces an asynchronous video chat system to provide better quality video at the expense of increased latency. It determined a codec/transmission protocol combination in the laboratory environment and tested it out with actual Deaf users. This paper will address the results based on comparison between different codecs, transmission protocol on asynchronous video communication for the Deaf.Telkom, Cisco, THRIP, SANPADDepartment of HE and Training approved lis