Juliana de Melo Bezerra

Motivation and Its Mechanisms in Virtual Communities

Participation is a key aspect of success of virtual communities. Participation is dependent on the members’ motivation that is driven by individual and environmental characteristics. This article investigates the individual and environmental factors that contribute to motivation and discusses mechanisms to improve motivation in virtual communities. The study is based on the Hersey and Blanchard’s motivation model, the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and the virtual community model. For the discussion of motivation mechanisms, we reviewed the literature and made qualitative interviews with members of the Wikipedia community.

Applying Conflict Management Process to Wiki Communities

Conflicts are disagreements among members and imply incompatible goals, whishes and interests. Unhandled conflicts can negatively impact group performance and members’ satisfaction. In virtual communities, members discuss when performing collaboratively online tasks so that conflicts can arise. Wiki communities are popular virtual communities that involve an expressive number of members for the online production of articles. Conflicts in wiki context are then critical, being responsible for damaging articles’ quality and even wiki credibility. We propose a management process that includes activities for identification, analysis, response, and monitoring and control of conflicts for wiki communities. In order to explain the activities and evaluate the process, we use Wikipedia.

A polyadic pi-calculus approach for the formal specification of UML-RT

UML-RT is a UML real-time profile that allows modeling event-driven and distributed systems; however it is not a formal specification language. This paper proposes a formal approach for UML-RT through a mapping of the UML-RT communicating elements into the π-calculus (or pi-calculus) process algebra. The formal approach both captures the intended behavior of the system being modeled and provides a rigorous and nonambiguous system description. Our proposal differentiates from other research work because we map UML-RT to π-calculus, and we allow the mapping of dynamic reconfiguration of UML-RT unwired ports. We illustrate the usage and applicability of the mapping through three examples. The first example focuses on explaining the mapping; the second one aims to demonstrate the use of the π-calculus definitions to verify system requirements; the third case is an example of mobile processes called Handover protocol.

An Approach to Collaborative Management of Informal Projects.

Informal projects, such as elaborating a schoolwork, organizing a social event, and planning a trip, are performed commonly in groups. Current approaches of project management are complex, rigorous, and do not explicitly exhibit the flexibility to manage informal projects. We propose an approach based on cooperative work concepts in order to support the participation of members in the collaborative management of informal projects. The proposed approach requires a tool support for the collaborative management. Aiming to verify the effectiveness of the approach, we developed and employed a mobile application to support collaborative management of informal projects. Two case studies were conducted to investigate if the approach, along with the tool, assists in the management activities and encourages participation of project’s members. Our preliminary results show that the approach improves planning and monitoring and control during project management, encourages the participation of members and helps in the recognition of members compared to existing approaches.

Towards a workflow to support the integration of aircraft systems' models

The demand for shorter lead times and lower costs, as well as stricter reliability requirements in the development of complex systems has required both the prompt identification of errors and the reduction of rework throughout the development projects. Model Based Engineering practices anticipate the validation of system requirements and architecture to the early stages of development. These practices are in general limited to the use of models in specific and often isolated areas of knowledge. The effective application of the Model Based Engineering practices in aircraft development project has been challenging due to the difficulties in building an integrated architectural model considering that the aircraft system requirements constantly change and evolve. We propose a workflow with activities to support the development of an integrated model composed of aircraft systems models. The workflow is a practical guide that considers the integration of the models that represent the aircraft systems, respecting the aircraft development cycles where the systems are defined and improved. The application of the workflow in a large-scale aircraft development program is presented as a case study.

A Multipurpose System for Gamified Experiences.

Gamification is the application of game elements and game design techniques to non-gaming contexts, aiming to provide incentives to people overcome obstacles towards a desired engagement and behavior. Nowadays gamification is applied in different areas such as Education, Business, Human Resources, Health, and Entertainment. Generally, existent applications are tied to a specific context, making it hard to replicate ideas and to adapt to new scenarios. Here, we present a multipurpose system where users are responsible for creating their own gamified experiences. The system is based in a generalized gamification process and it allows customizations due to its platform with predefined game elements. We conducted an experiment where we confirmed the applicability of the proposed system by investigating aspects as potential to motivate users, flexibility to be applied in distinct contexts, and overall usability.

Fostering Collaboration on Decision Processes.

Due to intrinsic complexity and uncertainty, decision problems require involvement of stakeholders with distinct backgrounds and points of view. Collaboration among stakeholders is then essential to identify the problem and find solutions. We propose a framework with guidelines to aid decision-makers, together with a facilitator, to structure and solve a problem collaboratively in a virtual environment. The framework points out how collaboration takes place during the whole decision process, including phases to structure the problem, to apply the multi-criteria decision analyses, and to explore the sensitivity analyses in order to reach the final result. We conducted an empirical evaluation, where decision makers reported benefits of the framework to engage stakeholders, to congregate ideas, and to reduce the duration of the decision process.

Towards a Framework for Aiding the Collaborative Management of Informal Projects

Informal projects, such as schoolwork and social meetings, are managed by groups in a collaborative way. Conventional management approaches are not suitable to deal with dynamism and decentralization required by informal projects. Although commonly used, communication tools alone are not sufficient for managing informal projects, due to a lack of coordination mechanisms and project awareness. Based on recommendations of cooperative work, motivation mechanisms and project management, we propose a framework to aid the collaborative management of informal projects. The framework consists of five guidelines regarding projects definition, activities’ management, responsibility sharing, contribution recognition, and project visibility. We demonstrate that the proposed framework is practical by building a mobile application. Based on two case studies, we show that the framework assist management activities and also foster participation and recognition. We also discuss the use to the framework to analyze an existing tool in a way to identify weaknesses and improvements.

Effects of Task Significance, Coordination and Incentive Mechanisms on Motivation of Online Teams

Online teams are useful due to both flexibility and facility to gather resources originally dispersed. However, its intrinsic characteristic of separation in space and time imposes challenges to participation. Belief in task significance has positive effects on moving members to participate, while incentive mechanisms can be added to foster participation. Coordination is a central to a successful collaboration, since it guides members’ participation. As participation is driven by motivation, we focus on motivation. We conducted an experiment to analyze the effects on motivation of the following aspects: task significance, quality of team coordination, and usage of incentive mechanisms. We discuss the relevance of these aspects; the characteristics that make them contribute to or interfere on online motivation; as well as the interplay among the aspects that can increase or reduce the aspects’ effect.

AHP-based Metric for Tie Strength of Online Friendships

Not all friends have the same importance to an individual, and even the importance of a friend can vary over time. In order to keep friends close, online relational maintenance strategies can be employed. The knowledge about the tie strength of an online relation can be useful to social, technical or commercial purposes. In this paper, we define a metric for tie strength in online friendships. We investigate variables related to friendship maintenance as well as their relative importance. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a decision method used to find the relevance of the selected variables. We conduct experiments that show a high acceptance of the metric based on assessments of real users.