Assignment10PorterButlerStarbirdZtaschdjian

Assignment10PorterButlerStarbirdZtaschdjian

To Do

Be prepared to give a 5-10 minute presentation about your project in class so the other students and the instructors understand your ideas and can see the progress you have made

Please post in the Wiki the following things about your project:

• title
• abstract
• team members and their responsibilities (e.g: how have you split up your work?)
• why is the project of interest to you?
• description of what you have done so far
• plan what you will do in the remaining time till the final projects reports are due
• relationship of your work to the major themes presented and discussed in the class
• references identified

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Amanda Porter, Stephen Butler, Kate Starbird, Zac Taschdjian

2. Question 1

Title:

Motivation and the Use of Tools in Online Environments: A Comparison of Facebook, MySpace, and LearnHub

Abstract:

Motivation to participate is an issue of interest to many researchers across a variety of disciplines. Motivation can be understood as simultaneously a cognitive, social, and communicative phenomenon. Given the varied nature of motivation, this study seeks to understand willingness to contribute specifically in online social environments. In particular, we examine how the technical and social intertwine to provide a more complete picture of motivational factors. Focusing on how specific online tools and applications relate to motivation, we examine and compare three online communities: Facebook, MySpace, and Learn Hub.

Responsibilities:

This project involves a variety of tasks across four main areas: gathering and evaluating sources of literature relevant to our project, site selection and examination, survey development and analysis, and finally, producing a written report of results. We have split up some of this work and in some cases, all four group members are working together. In terms of literature selection and review, all members of the group are making contributions. Amanda has identified and contributed literature that has examined similar sites with similar research questions. We also collaboratively selected our three main sites: Facebook, MySpace, and Learnhub. However, in terms of gaining some in-depth knowledge of these sites, we have split up the tasks of developing user personas and observation of site functionality. Zac is in charge of developing user personas for both MySpace and Facebook. Stephen is responsible for user persona in LearnHub. Kate is observing the functionality of MySpace and Facebook and both Kate and Stephen are observing the functionality of LearnHub. To construct our questionnaire survey items, each project member made an equal contribution. For the analysis process, we will work collaboratively to develop a coding scheme for our data that is consistent and reliable. From there, we will divvy up the analysis depending on the number of survey's completed. All four members of our group are experienced in qualitative data analysis. Finally, all four members of the group will write the report of our results. We will likely begin by dividing up sections and then work collaboratively to edit and produce the final result of the written report.

3. Question 2

Why is this project of interest?

We chose this project because it has significance to all of the project members in some way. For Kate, the question guiding this project will be one of the major research questions for her dissertation project. She plans to design and deploy an educational, end-user programming system populated by user-generated content. Part of her research will investigate who adopts the software system, why they adopt, how they use the tools, and what the quantities and qualities of their contributions are to the content of the system. Zac's interest in this question is its relation to usability and user-generated content. Specifically, how incentive structures in online communities affect the usability of the products being developed. For Amanda, one of her areas of interest includes group dynamics and specifically, the concept of collaboration. She is interested in designing frameworks for guiding collaborative interaction and a major consideration is motivation and willingness on the part of participants. Finally, for Stephen, motivation is also central to his research. He will be researching how to create an immersive educational experience outside of the classroom through mobile and social technologies. The interest, willingness, and motivation to participate in immersive educational environments will be an essential element.

4. Question 3

Description of work so far:

Thus far, we have completed tasks across three of the four main areas of this project (gathering and evaluating sources of literature relevant to our project, site selection and examination, survey development and analysis, and producing a written report of results). In terms of gathering and evaluating sources of literature relevant to our project, we have a good base already developed. This literature includes other similar studies of MySpace, Facebook, and other educational and online communities. In reading and evaluating this work, we have begun to identify important factors that shaped our survey questions. In particular, we have learned from this previous research of the importance of both identity and social capital in explaining motivation. These deal with both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. We have also completed site selection and examination of our sites via user personas and close examination of the sites functionality. This involved cataloguing and learning how to use the various tools and functionality that each site offers. We have also completed our surveys and will distribute it in the next few days to members of all three sites.

Plan for remaining time:

For the time remaining we will be waiting for survey's to be completed and then we will move into data analysis. For this stage, we will work collaboratively to develop a coding scheme to make sense of our results. Then, we will individually code a certain number of surveys, depending on the number of survey responses. After that is complete, we will divide up responsibility for writing the final paper among the group members equally.

Relationship to major themes in class:

This research touches on many of the themes of this class. Understanding users motivation and willingness to contribute to online communities is critical to the successful development of e-learning, e-business, e-healthcare, and e-government. In particular, our research relates to chapter 5 of our text, which looks at understanding human activities and relationships. This chapter presents a four level scheme of the self, family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, and citizens and markets as engaged in collection, creating, relating, and donating. At each level, human motivation to engage in this activity has to be explained. Finally, one of our sites, LearnHub, is an educational site so our research will also link specifically to e-learning and perhaps concepts of lifelong learning.

References:

Blumler, J. G. (1979). The role of theory in uses and gratifications studies. Communication Research, 6.

Bolliger, D.U. & Martindale, T. (2004). Key factors for determining student satisfaction in online course. International Journal on E-Learning, January- March:61-67.

Bruckman, Amy. 2002. "The future of e-learning communities." Commun. ACM 45:60-63.

Bruckman, Amy, and Mitchel Resnick. 1995. "The MediaMOO Project: Constructionism and Professional Community." Convergence 1:94-109.

Dika, S.L., & Singh, K. (2002). Applications of Social Capital in Educational Literature: A Critical Synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 72, 31-60.

Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S. R., & Passerini, K. (2007). Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace. Proceedings of AMCIS 2007, Keystone, CO

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 12 (4); pp.1143-1168.

Keefe, T.J. (2003). Using technology to enhance a course: The importance of interaction. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 1,24-34.

Mirel, B. (2004). Interaction Design for Complex Problem Solving. Morgan Kaufman Publishers. San Francisco, CA.

Nardi, B. & O'Day, V. (1999). Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart. MIT Press.

Piaget, Jean. (1950). The Psychology of Intelligence. New York: Routledge.

Rogers, E.M. (1962). Diffusion of Innovations. Free Press of Glencoe, Macmillan Company.

Stahl, G. (2006). Group cognition: Computer support for building collaborative knowledge. MIT Press. Cambridge, MA.

Walther, J. B., Van Der Heide, B., Kim, S. Y., & Westerman, D. (2008). The role of friends' appearance and behavior on evaluations of individuals on Facebook: Are we known by the company we keep? Human Communication Research, 34, 27-49.