Designing Online Communities: If We Build it, Will They Come?Yvonne Clark

Instructional Designer

Penn State University

Agenda

Defining the support needs Goals of the Penn State Adobe Connect

community Process of designing and implementing

the community (http://meeting.psu.edu) Results Then you’ll never guess what happened!

First, Some Questions

Do any of you use Adobe Connect Pro? Is it a complex too? Do you blog? Wiki? Comment on others’

blogs? Contribute to Wikipedia? Do you use Google Docs? What for? What does community mean to you? Are you a member of any communities?

Defining the Support Needs

Who is our audience? What do they need to be able to do?

Acquire meeting rooms Initiate meetings Invite people to attend meetings Use the meeting room tools Help other use the meeting room tools Run meetings Attend meetings Participate in meetings Provide technical support for all audiences

New Resource - Same Old Problems

How do you determine if support should be central or local?

How do you centrally support a new university-wide, central resource without adding more staff?

Support Considerations for Adobe Connect Penn State Help Desk provides

centralized support Help Desk staff answer general questions Adobe Connect is too complex for general

support to suffice Many user issues have to be resolved at

the local level

De-centralized vs Centralized Support Need centralized support to reduce unnecessary

duplication of efforts at the local level Need local support for immediate help and

knowledge of customizations How do you combine the efficiency of

centralized support with the personalization of local support?

We used Drupal to create an online community

Goals for the Online Community

To provide a place where IT support staff could share information and ideas

To provide a place where training staff could share information and ideas

To provide a place for posting announcements and pertinent information (instead of a listserv)

To provide a place where users could network and share ideas

Theories

Amy Jo KimA sustainable business modelA dynamic infrastructureEarned status and privileges for membersA healthy “immune” systemA set of tools for “self-organization”

Theories

Nancy WhiteClarify the purposeDefine the audienceDefine how members will interactSet the time frame for the community to existDefine the rules for the community

Theories

Randy Garrison and Norm Vaughn (in the context of blended learning)ContentMembersTeachers/mentors

Theories

Etienne Wenger Community identity is defined by a shared

domain of interest and competence Community members engage in joint activities

and discussions Community members are practitioners who

develop shared knowledge and history

Phases of Development and Implementation Planning Building Growing Sustaining Get the design document at

http://meeting.psu.edu/node/420

Planning

Define the community What is the mission and/or goal of the online

community? What are the objectives? Who is the audience? Are the benefits measurable and visible to members? What tools are available for building the online

community?

Planning

Are you ready and able to build and sustain the community? Do you have time? Resources? Leadership skills? Is there interest in the topic? Are content experts willing to participate? Is the audience large enough? Where will members come from? Open or closed community?

Building

Building toolsWhat tools are available?What are the audience’s skills?What are the audience’s Internet capabilities?What are your tech skills?What kind of staff and tech support will you

need while building?

Building

ContentNeed content to seed the communityHow will members become engaged?How will members work together?How will members make contributions?Who will do the initial work of seeding content

and setting up the environment?

Building

Behavior models for membersVisibility of administrators and moderatorsContact informationRulesEnforcement of rulesCopyright issues

Growing

Managing members is as important as managing contentConversations and relationshipsNeed structure and purposeSeed the community with peopleDefine and assign rolesTell members how to contributeCross post to increase traffic

Sustaining

Share the workloadHave several moderatorsAllow community members to guide the

direction of the contentPlan activitiesProvide opportunities for members to share a

sense of ownershipRecruit members to help

Sustaining

Celebrate and recognize members’ workHighlight best parts of the communityEncourage a community cultureKeep archives of community historyRecognize quality contributionsProvide support and encouragementNurture members

Online Community Scales Well

Immediate pay-offs of the online community are scalability, flexibility, and efficiency

Community provides both central and local support instead of either or

Everyone with the same or similar needs and questions have access to the same answers and information

Scales across the Penn State community of 95,000

Success of the Online Community Our information is at the top of the page for most

any Adobe Connect Google search you can think of

We frequently get inquiries from other institutions who are also using Adobe Connect or just beginning implementation

A couple of months into the project, we realized that the online community scales for a much larger audience than just the Penn State community

Training and Support Have Similar Needs Penn State Training Services staff are

generalists -- Adobe Connect is complex Different units do things differently -- hard

for centralized training to provide adequate instruction

Remote training is an issue

Immediate Training Needs

IT support staff needed more in-depth training than they could receive from the general, centralized training sessions

Ag Sciences needed more extensive training and training for remote participants

Focus Group InformationFeedback from focus group indicated a number of additional

training needs: Short and to the point -- just in time Readily available Easily searchable Apply to all audiences Address all user roles High quality Customizable/flexible application Maintained Make source files available Work in Share pod both synchronously and asynchronously Work with various distribution methods

The Value is in the Source

Posted materials are OK for Penn State users The real value is in the original, unpublished files If you have the original files, you can easily

customize and brand the content -- even if you aren’t part of the Penn State community

Adobe Connect Training Collaborative community design specifications: http://meeting.psu.edu/node/422