JRA6:Virtual Communities

Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, 21-22 December 2011

Chris Marsden (ESSEX)

FP7-ICT-2011.1.6-288021 EINS

Network of Excellence in Internet Science

JRA6 Objectives
Developing social design methodologies that underline development and experimentation within virtual communities
o o

including user needs analysis the impact on technological design choices affecting future Internets. socio-economic, security, privacy concerns.

Methodologies take into explicit account

o o o

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

JRA6 develops social design methodologies

Development and experimentation within virtual communities: o Including user needs analysis o Impact on technological design choices
o

such as open standards, Quality of Service

Taking into account: o socio-economic, security and privacy concerns.

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Audience Participation!
Send a short email about your experience with:

1.Virtual communities
1.what you did, what the result was

2.Virtual communities case study

1.Any unusual/counter-intuitive example
1.E.g. Conflict resolution easier offline than online?

3.Virtual communities literature

o

Different literatures in each discipline

Email cmars@essex.ac.uk Thank you!

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Partners in JRA6
Total Effort: 25 months (500 days)
Socio-legal studies/coordination/deliverables
 ESSEX 100 days  Note recent ERC 5-year grant to Galeotti (Networks, Markets, Organisation) http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~agaleo/ERC.htm Also 'Emerging Segmentation Modelling Using Social Networks' http://cresi.essex.ac.uk/getproject?projectID=46

Socio-economic analysis
 IBBT 40 days

Social science broadly drawn

 UNIBO 40 days

Anthropology
 OXF Dunbar 20 days (NB - ERC 5 year Advanced Grant)

Communications studies
 TUDelft 40 days

Complimented by
 NEXA 50days  CNR 60days  TCLR 30days  ULANC 40days  NKUA 40days EINS Kick-off Meeting  Stockholm 2mth

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Tasks in JRA6
R6.1 Overview of user needs analysis R6.2 Mutual impact between virtual Internet and human social communities R6.3. Exploring virtual community e-democracy R6.4 Consensus building and e-voting in virtual communities R6.5 Dissemination and collection of user cases catalogue

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

R6.1 Overview of user needs analysis

UESSEX, ULANC, IBBT, LSE, MLS

Develop needs analysis

o o

based on methodologies such as user experience, anthropology, sociology, economics, network analysis. bottom-up user-generated hierarchical or centrally coordinated in both commercial and community ownership. also with external communities.

Explore the role of communities

o o o

Series of events with relevant JRAs

o

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

R6.2 Mutual impact between virtual Internet and human social communities
UESSEX, CNR, ULANC, NKUA, UiO, MLS

Analyze mutual dependence between

virtual communities and underlying human social communities (not necessarily mediated by ICT). To what extent known behaviours emerge within these virtual communities as a result of properties like common interests/preferences.
o o o

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

R6.3. Exploring virtual community e-democracy

o

UNIBO, TUD, IBBT, CNR, LSE

2 correlated & complementary Internet roles consensus building process around new political actors, interest groups and/or
o

public body initiatives. new channel to make citizens voice heard.

supporting emerging forms of political participation,

o

Online social networks and virtual communities as starting point for newborn political initiatives

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

R6.4 Consensus building and e-voting in virtual communities

UNIBO, TUD, OXF, LSE

Methods and tools to evaluate consensus

o

require broad societal trust in e-voting Common characteristics among systems. usability as perceived by final users

Review of current instruments

o o

To infer most effective technologies

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

R6.5 Dissemination and collection of user cases catalogue

UESSEX, CNR, ULANC, OXF, MLS, LSE

R6.1-6.4 lead to collection of case studies

o

in successful system design and user adoption dynamic high-speed infrastructure that should provide the services beneath the applications

Design &development of virtual communities

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investigated using outcome of R6.1-R6.2. Compare R6.1-R6.2 with R6.3-6.4 outcomes To make recommendations about future research into virtual communities.

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Deliverables
DR6.1. (M18) 1.Overview of user needs analysis, 2.draft catalogue of design responses to needs analysis
o o

short summary document explaining

 critical needs in various types of virtual community,

Appendices dedicated to
 typology of communities, degrees of virtuality, tools employed, as a basis for cataloguing.  Also catalogued data base of communities, degrees of virtuality, tools employed, from which case studies will be selected for DR6.3.

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Further deliverables
DR6.2 Catalogue of advanced user cases and final user need analysis (M36) DR6.3x Continuous cataloguing of dissemination and collaboration with broader social science community (M18, M36)

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

WP Action List for the 1st Year

R6.1: o Initial Overview o Draft user needs analysis R6.2 Mutual impact between
o o

virtual Internet and human social communities relying on JRA partners' existing published work, experimental outcomes and associates' research

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Interdependencies with other WPs

Virtual communities play a part in: JRA4 Standards and Governance JRA5 Privacy: impacts on virtual community working Other IAs/SEAs - EINS as a 'model' virtual community'?

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

WP Impact
Brings together those involved in the design of virtual communities
o

NoE & wider scientific/stakeholder community e.g. economic and societal impact of solutions, directly leading to a measure of desirability as well as viability of given design choices, demonstrating approaches of communities benchmarking developed set of tools.

Develop tool set to answer design questions

o o o

Conduct use cases

o o

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011

Issues to be discussed and decided

Mode of working: 1.Virtual presence 2.Physical meeting - location, timing, participants 3.Steering group 4.Dissemination methods 5.Absorption of funded research

EINS Kick-off Meeting

Brussels, December 21-22, 2011