Communities and Portals

1. Communities and Portals Lan Zhang School of Information University of Texas at Austin

2. Corporate Portals • Corporate portals • Are single-point Web browser interfaces used within organizations to promote the gathering, sharing, and dissemination of the information throughout the enterprise. • Offers organizational users the ability to access a wide variety of information sources directly from the desktop. (Detlor, 2000)

3. The traditional approach • Data-driven • Ignores the information needs and practices of users • May have usability problems • Poor navigation • Inappropriate display of information

4. The potential of corporate portals • “By focusing on user information practice and the contexts in which information is utilized, system developers can provide richer and more robust corporate portals that function as infrastructures for the creation, sharing, and re-use of information throughout the firm.”

5. Elements • An enterprise taxonomy or classification of information categories • A search engine • Links to both internal and external Web sites and information sources. • Advanced features include • Access to work group productivity tools, such as e-mail, calendar, etc.

6. Shared Information Work Space • A content space • Facilitates information access and retrieval • A communication space • Negotiates collective interpretations and shared meanings • A coordination space • Supports cooperative work action

7. Theoretical basis • Emphasis on people, the users • Information seeking vs. information retrieval • Taylor’s value-added model and Information use environment (IUE) • Environment settings • Sets of people in these settings • Problems • Problem resolutions • Information Ecology • How users operate in their information environment • Focus on people and information behavior

8. Behavioral-Ecological framework • The information ecology of the organization • The information behaviors of users • The value-added processes within a portal

9. Information Ecology • Analyzing an organization’s information ecology • Organizational mission • Corporate portal goals • Information management plans • Information culture • Information politics • Physical setting • Information staff • Information handling

10. Information behaviors • Refer to the practices of individuals and groups as they go about obtaining and using information to resolve their work-related problem situations. • Who are the users? • Structure of the problem situations? • How users seek and prefer information?

11. Value-added processes • Directly support the information behaviors of users • Fit or improve the organization’s information ecology • Incorporate functions and features which enhance the potential usefulness of information to users.

12. Communities • Internet Communities • the gathering of people, in an online "space" where they come, communicate, connect, and get to know each other better over time. • Communities of Practice (CoPs) • “A flexible group of professionals, informally bound by common interests, who interact through interdependent tasks guided by a common purpose thereby embodying a store of common knowledge.” (Jubert, 1999)

13. Major Community Themes • Development path • Membership • Activities • Organizational support • Value

14. Benefits • Individual benefits • Improved reputation • A better understanding of others • Increased level of trust • Familiar and supportive environment • Increased access to experts and valuable information sources

15. Benefits • Community benefits • Increased idea creation • Increased quality of knowledge and advice, problem solving, and creating a common context

16. Benefits • Organizational benefits • Successfully executed projects • Increased new business, and product innovation • Time saving

17. Costs • Technology investment • Participation time for community members • Meeting and conference expenses • Content publishing expenses • Promotional expenses

18. Internet Communities • Computer mediated communication (CMC) • How agents interface to the network • How discourse occurs within community • How resources are discovered and accessed

19. A punctuated discourse model of CMC • Times • Origination time • Discovery time • Response time • Response discovery time • Awareness • Extensional awareness • Intensional awareness • Resource awareness • Chronological awareness

20. Chronological awareness tools • CHRONO • WebWatch • Katipo • URL-Minder

21. Motivations for participation in virtual communities • To gain positive self-image • Contribution as an investment in social power • Name recognition from peers

22. Criteria for successful virtual cooperative interactions • Establishment of resource awareness for initial encounter • Establishment of mutual awareness as a feedback loop for continual virtual cooperative interactions • Compatibility between the expected and the actual time cycles of virtual cooperative interactions • Properly situated expectations of fairness in terms of collective social exchange • Accumulation of positive feedback for reinforcements in virtual cooperative interactions.

23. Detlor, B. (2000). The corporate portal as information infrastructure: Towards a framework for portal design. International Journal of Information Management, 20(2), 91-101. Jubert, A., “Developing an infrastructure for communities of practice: the Siemens experience,” Online Information 99 Proceedings, Hinksley Hill, Learned Information Europe, 1999, pp. 165 - 168. Lee,  L.& Gaines, B. (1996) Knowledge Acquisition Processes in Internet Communities. Proceedings of the 10th Knowledge Acquisition Workshops, Banff, Canada November 9-14, 1996 McDonald, David & Ackerman, Mark. (2000) Expertise Recommender: A Flexible Recommendation System and Architecture. Proceedings of CSCW'00. ACM Press. Millen, D., Fontaine, M., Muller, M. (2002) Understanding the Benefit and Costs of Communities of Practice. Communications of the ACM. 45(4), 69-73. ACM Press.