Blog 1, Communities

A virtual or online community is a place in cyber-space where people can share space, interests, commonalities, and goals. It is also where people can support each other, teach another or learn from many. People often remain in a community because of the connection with others who share common interests and points of view, and the possibility of meeting others with different viewpoints allowing an individual to learn from this different viewpoint. Motivation can come from the desire to help another learn about your interests (excitement in sharing your interests) or from the desire to learn about new interests. A downfall for this type of motivation, is that when the excitement in teaching or learning decreases, so does the motivation to stay active in the community. Within a physical community physical presence can be an additional motivator.

Many online communities require an admission application to be completed before allowing an individual to join and have specific requirements to remain a member of the community. An example of this is an online quilting community that I was a member of a few years back (before graduate school). The requirements to join and remain a member of the community were to post to the discussion boards at least once a month. This was to ensure active participation among members and to be able to drop members who no longer are an active member. This also allowed people who were not as active at discussions to still post once a month, but still be able to read the other discussions and learn from others in the community. The quilting community also branched out and provided physical interactions with members through block swaps (a member can sign up to make certain quilt blocks and swap with others in the community, getting different designs or colors).

The online communities allow for a larger, more diverse membership. The boundaries are set by the founders of the community, not by geographical limitations.

An advantage of many online communities is the format of the communication within the community, the majority of the communication is through written word through blogging, chat rooms or discussion boards. Within this written format of communication is a recording of the communication, therefore an asynchronous format to the information shared. With this format, members have the opportunity to access the information when it is convenient to them. This can be useful for teaching and learning from other members of the community.