The Student Room: student discussion forum about Higher Education
"The Student Room is owned by a small but perfectly formed Brighton based company called Acumen PI, but soon to morph into The Student Room Group.
We're all passionate about The Student Room and our sister sites, and love working on them. Generally we see our role as facilitators, steering our sites forward in exciting ways, but we're under no illusions that it's the community of members that make The Student Room special and unique in the vast world of social media."
(Acumen Professional Intelligence, UK)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
open: output (design student portfolio site)
"'open :output' is an online community which allows students of design and architecture to create their own personal portfolio websites free of charge. The platform makes the work of young talent from all over the world visible to wider public. The works on 'open :output' would otherwise probably never have been published. 'open :output' offers students the opportunity to present themselves as designers and architects in a strong network. The power of students as well as educational institutions of design and architecture throughout the world are promoted to the general public by 'open :output'."
(Output Foundation)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
In Media Res: collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship
"In Media Res is dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship. Our goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst scholars and the public about contemporary approaches to studying media. In Media Res provides a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media at a pace closer to how we experience mediated texts.
Each weekday, a different scholar curates a 30-second to 3-minute video clip/visual image slideshow accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. We use the title 'curator' because, like a curator in a museum, you are repurposing a media object that already exists and providing context through your commentary, which frames the object in a particular way. The clip/comment combination are intended both to introduce the curator's work to the larger community of scholars (as well as non-academics who frequent the site) and, hopefully, encourage feedback/discussion from that community.
Theme weeks are designed to generate a networked conversation between curators. All the posts for theme weeks thematically overlap and the participating curators each agree to comment on one another's work."
(In Media Res: A MediaCommons Project)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Sims On Stage: tools for creating and publishing your own mash-ups
"The Sims On Stage is a new online community from the people who make The Sims games at Electronic Arts. Here you can sing and record your favorite songs karaoke-style as well as write and perform your own comedy sketches, poetry and stories. You can even create movie 'mashups' by mixing your own recorded performances with video clips from The Sims games.
...
We make it easy for you. All you need is a computer and your creative spirit, and we'll take care of the rest. You'll also need a microphone if you want to make recordings, and if you have a webcam you can take it up another level and record your own video performances!
The Sims On Stage lets you connect with millions online and join a vibrant community of content creators, performers and fans who share works and recordings, rate and leave feedback on each other's content, create and enter contests and compete for the coveted spots at the top of the charts! Click below to sign up for a free membership."
(Electronic Arts)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Is Lurking A Problem In Online Communities?
"The term 'lurking' casts a pejorative shadow on people who do not actively post in an online community. Indeed, most early studies focused only on people who post and these people were considered to be 'the community' (Beaudouin & Velkovska, 1999; King, 1994; Parks & Floyd, 1996). As the dot.com era evolved attitudes towards people who do not post hardened, and the notion of lurkers as free-riders (Smith & Kollock, 1999) became more prominent. A primary reason for this was entrepreneurs added the online community feature to enhance the potential for commercial success at their websites. It was believed that lots of participation through message exchanges would create an attractive shopping environment, and they believed that an active online community would draw people to their website and keep them there ? a concept known as 'stickiness' - and so increase e-commerce sales (Hagel & Armstrong, 1991). The goal was always to have an environment where lurkers would 'graduate' to active Draft: Preece, J., Nonnecke, B., Andrews, D. (2004) The top 5 reasons for lurking: Improving community experiences for everyone. Computers in Human Behaviour, 2, 1 (in press) participation. Hence, lurkers were considered second-class members of the online community."
(Jenny Preece, Blair Nonnecke, Dorine Andrews p.4)
Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 20, Issue 2, March 2004, Pages 201-223
Jenny Preece , Blair Nonnecke and Dorine Andrews
[1]: Beaudouin, V., & Velkovska, J. (1999, Jan. 22-24). The Cyberians: an empirical study of
sociality in a virtual community. Paper presented at the Ethnographic Studies in
Real and Virtual Environments: Inhabited Information Spaces and Connected
Communities Conference, Edinburgh.
[2]: Smith, M. A., & Kollock, P. (1999). Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge.
[3]: Hagel, J. III & Armstrong, A.G. (1997). net.gain: Expanding Markets through Virtual
Communities. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
