Jenny Preece and Diane Maloney-Krichmar
UMBC
Background
The Scope of This Chapter
What Is an Online Community?
Emergence of Online Communities
Social Interaction
Communicating Online
Common Ground
Social Presence, Identity, and Relationships
Empathy and Trust
Group Dynamics Online
Social Network Theory
Critical Mass
Reciprocity and Social Dilemma
Roles, Rituals, Norms and Policies
Support for Social Interaction
Developing and Evaluating Online Communities
Supporting Sociability and Designing Usability
Relating Sociability With Usability
Determinants of Success
Different Types of Communities
Patient Support
Education
E-business
Research Techniques
Ethnography and Associated Techniques
Data Logging
Questionnaires
Experiments and Quasi-experiments
Brief Summary and Agenda for Future Work
Researchers
Practitioners
Acknowledgements
References