C&T 2013: 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies
The Communities and Technologies 2013 conference received 46 submissions for full papers and 12 submissions for research in progress papers. From these submissions, 17 papers were selected to appear at the conference (29%). All submitted papers were subjected to double blind peer review by an independent international program committee of 51 experts.
Communities & Technologies 2013, June 29 – July 2, 2013, Munich, Germany. Edited by Wolfgang Prinz, Christine Satchell, Michael Koch, Johann Schlichter. Published by ACM and the European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET).
ISBN: 978-1-4503-2104-4
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- Text DocumentWork-to-rule: the emergence of algorithmic governance in Wikipedia(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Müller-Birn, Claudia; Dobusch, Leonhard; Herbsleb, James D.Research has shown the importance of a functioning governance system for the success of peer production communities. It particularly highlights the role of human coordination and communication within the governance regime. In this article, we extend this line of research by differentiating two categories of governance mechanisms. The first category is based primarily on communication, in which social norms emerge that are often formalized by written rules and guidelines. The second category refers to the technical infrastructure that enables users to access artifacts, and that allows the community to communicate and coordinate their collective actions to create those artifacts. We collected qualitative and quantitative data from Wikipedia in order to show how a community's consensus gradually converts social mechanisms into algorithmic mechanisms. In detail, we analyze algorithmic governance mechanisms in two embedded cases: the software extension "flagged revisions" and the bot "xqbot". Our insights point towards a growing relevance of algorithmic governance in the realm of governing large-scale peer production communities. This extends previous research, in which algorithmic governance is almost absent. Further research is needed to unfold, understand, and also modify existing interdependencies between social and algorithmic governance mechanisms.
- Text DocumentHow user communities improve mass customization productivity(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Straßburger, SimonThis papers addresses the question how mass customization firms use communities to improve customer interaction and thus making mass customization more productive. Out of a pool of 118 mass customization firms and their communities, we selected representative companies (in terms of community size, - integration and openness) within an iterative approach for in-depth interviews. We found that communities can serve as levers for mass customization productivity, but companies seem to exploit them differently: Companies with a small customer base tend to limit communities merely on marketing communication to increase sales output. Providers with large and integrated communities realize a broader productivity potential from communities, exploiting them not only for increasing productivity output but for decreasing input factors in customer interaction processes (such as support in product configuration).
- Text DocumentThe role of community in exercise: cross-cultural study of online exercise diary users(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Malinen, Sanna; Nurkka, PiiaThis study investigates users of a newly launched website aimed at tracking exercise activities. The data was collected through an online questionnaire with 282 respondents. Three nationalities, Spanish, Germans and Americans, were compared, and the results show that their relation to community aspects of the service was significantly different. The Spanish showed most interest in collaboration and creation of new contacts, whereas Germans were the least interested in these activities. The finding may be explained by the differences of these national cultures along the individualism-collectivism dimension of Hofstede's cultural theory. Across the nationalities, the users were foremost motivated by using the website for promoting their individual goals in exercise.
- Text DocumentSocial and mobile interaction design to increase the loyalty rates of young blood donors(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Foth, Marcus; Satchell, Christine; Seeburger, Jan; Russell-Bennett, RebekahYoung adults represent the largest group of first time donors to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, but they are also the least loyal group and often do not return after their first donation. At the same time, many young people use the internet and various forms of social media on a daily basis. Web and mobile based technological practices and communication patterns change the way that young people interact with one another, with their families, and communities. Combining these two points of departure, this study seeks to identify best practices of employing mobile apps and social media in order to enhance the loyalty rates of young blood donors. The findings reported in this paper are based on a qualitative approach presenting a nuanced understanding of the different factors that motivate young people to donate blood in the first place, as well as the obstacles or issues that prevent them from returning. The paper discusses work in progress with a view to inform the development of interactive prototypes trialling three categories of features: personal services (such as scheduling)
- Text DocumentAgora2.0: enhancing civic participation through a public display(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Schiavo, Gianluca; Milano, Marco; Saldivar, Jorge; Nasir, Tooba; Zancanaro, Massimo; Convertino, GregorioProviding a common place for the civil society to gather and discuss topics of mutual interest is a growing challenge for social and collaborative computing. Web-based tools for civic engagement, while promising, are still disconnected from meaningful physical locations where citizens usually meet and might limit the involvement of a considerable portion of the citizen population. We propose a system, Agora2.0, designed to recover the useful function that public places have had in the past in promoting and regulating citizens' participation in public decisions. Agora2.0 is inspired by the old concept of the Greek agora, or public square. It is composed of an onsite interactive public display and an online site. We present the project, the analysis of the requirements, the system prototype, and its evaluation during deployments in a university and in a public relations office of a European city.
- Text DocumentA stake in the issue of homelessness: identifying values of interest for design in online communities(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Koepfler, Jes A.; Shilton, Katie; Fleischmann, Kenneth R.Social media has the potential to impact how traditionally marginalized and geographically disparate communities, such as the homeless, connect with each other and social services online. However, little is known about how best to support these interactions through designing new information and communication technologies or by enhancing existing ones. Considering the values of stakeholders in an online community before embarking on design is one increasingly utilized step in designing for, by, and with traditionally disenfranchised communities. Current values-based design methods emphasize face-to-face interactions, but online interactions also provide spaces to elicit and consider values. This paper synthesizes the results of three studies into a suite of methods for eliciting shared values and conflicting values in online communities. This paper also contributes a survey-based tool containing value portraits as a first step towards implementing these methods. These methods for identifying values of interest to design contribute to a growing body of tools that support values researchers and designers in explicating values prior to, during, and in the evaluation of the design of ICTs.
- Text DocumentPatterns of support in an online community for smoking cessation(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Ploderer, Bernd; Smith, Wally; Howard, Steve; Pearce, Jon; Borland, RonSocial support offers various benefits for health and behaviour change. However, previous work has shown that individuals are typically reluctant to ask for support on social network sites, unless they can present a changed, healthier identity. To examine the relationship between stage of change and social support we conducted a thematic analysis of messages posted in a public Facebook support group for people trying to quit smoking. Our findings show that the kind of support exchanged online is related to participants' stage of change. Contrary to our expectations, supportive responses and leadership in the support group came mainly from users who just started their change process rather than people who had already changed. We discuss contributions to theories of online participation and impression management as well as implications for practitioners who seek to establish support groups.
- Text DocumentAgorà 2.0: designing hybrid communities(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Pucci, Emilia Louisa; Mulder, IngridThe current work envisions Agorà 2.0 as a conceptual framework for designing hybrid communities inspired by the values of the ancient Greek agorà as well as those of Web 2.0. We report a research-through-design study of a digital social network extended with a wearable ubiquitous device aiming at augmenting social bonding in contemporary cities. Various research and design iterations as well as the resulting prototypes are described and reflected upon. The elaborated Agorà 2.0 paradigm seems to be helpful for incorporating citizens in future (co-)design of cohesive environments.
- Text DocumentCollective city memory: field experience on the effect of urban computing on community(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Ringas, Dimitrios; Christopoulou, EleniIn this paper we present field experience and user evaluation results from a long-term real world deployment of a novel urban computing application. Our goal has been to study the effect of applying urban computing to its three constituents: place, community and infrastructure. A suitable application for this, should enable us to evaluate how a city is altered, how the perception of people about the city changes, whether the communication among people is encouraged and what is the benefit from a city's infrastructure. We deployed CLIO, an urban computing application that allows forming and interacting with the collective city memory, in two different cities, in Greece and Finland. We carried out in-the-field user trials and interviews, and collected detailed logs for more than two months, evaluating both the suitability of our application for our purpose and the effect of this urban computing application to the city and its people. Our findings shed light on how a city and the perception of people about it change, reveal the extend to which an urban computing system can affect a community and evaluate the role of public infrastructure in those transformations.
- Text DocumentStudying social technologies and communities of volunteers in emergency management(Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '13, 2013) Herranz, Sergio; Díaz, Paloma; Díez, David; Aedo, IgnacioCommunities of volunteers are fundamental agents in the emergency management process. In spite of the unquestionable value that social technologies could bring to such communities of volunteers it is not clear whether they are exploiting all their potential and why. This work presents a qualitative study with volunteers from different emergency communities with the purpose of establishing design challenges to better leverage social technologies that can augment the capabilities of such communities. The results of the study suggest the need to address specific design challenges related to reliability, integrity, and efficient analysis of information. In addition, the integration of multiple interaction mechanisms and shared calendars as well as the design of effective and adaptive messages for crisis communications are also considered important aspects by emergency volunteers.