Yuqing Ren

Applying Common Identity and Bond Theory to Design of Online Communities

Online communities depend upon the commitment and voluntary participation of their members. Community design — site navigation, community structure and features, and organizational policies — is critical in this regard. Community design affects how people can interact, the information they receive about one another and the community, and how they can participate in community activities. We argue that the constraints and opportunities inherent in online community design influence how people become attached to the community and whether they are willing to expend effort on its behalf. We examine two theories of group attachment and link these theories with design decisions for online communities. Common identity theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of peoples attachment to the group as a whole. Common bond theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of peoples attachment to individual group members. We review causes of common identity and common bond, and show how they result in different kinds of attachment and group outcomes. We then show how design decisions, such as those focused on recruiting newcomers versus retaining existing members, constraining or promoting off-topic discussion, and limiting group size or allowing uncontrolled growth, can lead to common identity or interpersonal bonds among community members, and consequently to different levels and forms of community participation by those so motivated.

Watching together: integrating text chat with video

Watching video online is becoming increasingly popular, and new video streaming technologies have the potential to transform video watching from a passive, isolating experience into an active, socially engaging experience. However, the viability of an active social experience is unclear: both chatting and watching video require attention, and may interfere with one another and detract from the experience. In this paper, we empirically examine the activity of chatting while watching video online. We examine how groups of friends and strangers interact, and find that chat has a positive influence on social relationships, and people chat despite being distracted. We discuss the benefits and opportunities provided by mixing chat and video, uncover some of the attentional and social challenges inherent in this combination of media, and provide guidance for structuring the viewing experience.

Multiple Group Coordination in Complex and Dynamic Task Environments: Interruptions, Coping Mechanisms, and Technology Recommendations

Collaboration in complex and dynamic environments such as hospitals, airlines, and disaster response teams is challenging. High performance requires smooth coordination across multiple groups whose incentives, cultures, and routines can conflict. In this paper, we present an in-depth case study of a hospitals operating room practices to understand challenges associated with multiple group coordination and how information technology may help. We use the concept of trajectory to focus our observations and interviews on workflow across groups and critical events when coordination breaks down. A careful examination of the sources, coping mechanisms, and consequences of coordination breakdowns suggests three factors whose absence may impede effective responses to unexpected interruptions: (1) trajectory awareness of what is going on beyond a persons immediate workspace, (2) information systems integration, and (3) information pooling and learning at the organizational level. We conclude with technological recommendations to promote trajectory awareness and to automate information gathering and monitoring, so as to facilitate multiple group coordination in complex and dynamic task environments.

Talk amongst yourselves: inviting users to participate in online conversations

Many small online communities would benefit from increased diversity or activity in their membership. Some communities run the risk of dying out due to lack of participation. Others struggle to achieve the critical mass necessary for diverse and engaging conversation. But what tools are available to these communities to increase participation? Our goal in this research was to spark contributions to the movielens.org discussion forum, where only 2% of the members write posts. We developed personalized invitations, messages designed to entice users to visit or contribute to the forum. In two field experiments, we ask (1) if personalized invitations increase activity in a discussion forum, (2) how the choice of algorithm for intelligently choosing content to emphasize in the invitation affects participation, and (3) how the suggestion made to the user affects their willingness to act. We find that invitations lead to increased participation, as measured by levels of reading and posting. More surprisingly, we find that invitations emphasizing the social nature of the discussion forum increase user activity, while invitations emphasizing other details of the discussion are less successful.

The Impact of Membership Overlap on Growth: An Ecological Competition View of Online Groups

The dominant narrative of the Internet has been one of unconstrained growth, abundance, and plenitude. It is in this context that new forms of organizing, such as online groups, have emerged. However, the same factors that underlie the utopian narrative of Internet life also give rise to numerous online groups, many of which fail to attract participants or to provide significant value. This suggests that despite the potential transformative nature of modern information technology, issues of scarcity, competition, and context may remain critical to the performance and functioning of online groups. In this paper, we draw from organizational ecology theories to develop an ecological view of online groups to explain how overlapping membership among online groups causes intergroup competition for member attention and affects a groups ability to grow. Hypotheses regarding the effects of group size, age, and membership overlap on growth are proposed and tested with data from a 64-month, longitudinal sample of 240 online discussion groups. The analysis shows that sharing members with other groups reduced future growth rates, suggesting that membership overlap puts competitive pressure on online groups. Our results also suggest that, compared with smaller and younger groups, larger and older groups experience greater difficulty in growing their membership. In addition, larger groups were more vulnerable to competitive pressure than smaller groups: larger groups experienced greater difficulty in growing their membership than smaller groups as competition intensified. Overall, our findings show how an abundance of opportunities afforded by technologies can create scarcity in user time and effort, which increases competitive pressure on online groups. Our ecological view extends organizational ecology theory to new organizational forms online and highlights the importance of studying the competitive environment of online groups.

Searching for the goldilocks zone: trade-offs in managing online volunteer groups

Dedicated and productive members who actively contribute to community efforts are crucial to the success of online volunteer groups such as Wikipedia. What predicts member productivity? Do productive members stay longer? How does involvement in multiple projects affect member contribution to the community? In this paper, we analyze data from 648 WikiProjects to address these questions. Our results reveal two critical trade-offs in managing online volunteer groups. First, factors that increase member productivity, measured by the number of edits on Wikipedia articles, also increase likelihood of withdrawal from contributing, perhaps due to feelings of mission accomplished or burnout. Second, individual membership in multiple projects has mixed effects. It decreases the amount of work editors contribute to both the individual projects and Wikipedia as a whole. It increases withdrawal for each individual project yet reduces withdrawal from Wikipedia. We discuss how our findings expand existing theories to fit the online context and inform the design of new tools to improve online volunteer work.

The Impact and Evolution of Group Diversity in Online Open Collaboration

Online open collaboration efforts, such as Wikipedia articles and open source software development, often involve a large crowd with diverse experiences and interests. Diversity, on the one hand, facilitates the access to and integration of a wide variety of information; on the other hand, it may cause conflict and hurt group performance. Although diversity’s effects have been the subject of many studies in offline work groups (with the results remaining inconclusive), its effects in online self-organizing groups are underexplored. In this paper, we examine 648 WikiProjects to understand (1) how tenure disparity and interest variety affect group productivity and member withdrawal and (2) how the two types of diversity evolve over time. Our results show a curvilinear effect of tenure disparity, which increases productivity and decreases member withdrawal, up to a point. Beyond that point, productivity slightly decreases, and members are more likely to withdraw. In comparison, our results show a positive ef...

Agent Based Modeling to Inform the Design of Multiuser Systems

Agent Based Modeling studies group activity by simulating the individuals in it and allowing group-level phenomena to emerge. It can be used to integrate theories to inform designs of technology for groups. Researchers use theories as the basis of the rules of how individuals behave (e.g., what motivates users to contribute to an online community). They can run virtual experiments by changing parameters of the model (e.g., the topical focus in an online community) to see what collective behaviors emerge.

Out With The Old, In With The New?: Unpacking Member Turnover in Online Production Groups

Nearly any group is subject to turnover : some people leave, while others join. Turnover can be especially high in online groups, since participation typically is strictly voluntary. We investigated the effects of member turnover in online groups, specifically in Wikipedias WikiProjects. We based our studies on theories from organizational science, which suggest that it is not just the amount of turnover, but the characteristics of those leaving and those joining that matter. We characterized leavers and newcomers by their prior productivity, tenure (in the group or community), and participation in other groups within the larger community. Furthermore, we considered the moderating effect of group size on turnover. We analyzed data from 88,427 editors who participated in 1,054 WikiProjects, finding that (1) the positive effects of newcomers to a group were larger than the negative effects of leavers, (2) prior productivity, tenure, and participation in other groups all played significant roles, and (3) the effects of leavers and newcomers were amplified in larger groups.