Open Learning Network

We had the honour and joy to welcome Prof Jenny Preece at OLnet on the 8th and 9th of April. Jenny Preece together with Ben Schneiderman have created the Reader-to-Leader Framework, a framework supported by extensive references to the research literature that explains what motivates technology-mediated social participation in online communities.

According to the authors, newcomers start by initially reading content on the site. Enticing content that is regularly updated encourages the user to return and become a contributor, by uploading information, commenting, enquiring or rating content. The next stage is for fewer users to become regular contributors and start collaborating with others, gaining a sense of community, supporting the group, seeing their actions being reciprocated and also being rewarded and gaining status and reputation. In the final stage, a small fraction of users become leaders, who participate in governance and take on a leadership role. The authors categorise the successive levels of participation as reading, contributing, collaborating and leading. It is this particular framework that inspired our participatory learning research.

Individuals participate in many different ways in online communities. The emergence of the internet has enabled individuals to connect and participate in online activities in ways never before imaginable.

They are downloading, uploading, commenting, creating, co-creating and sharing content that is generated by themselves, their friends and peers or even by total strangers. These activities take place within communities, where individuals connect to each other through a shared object, a common purpose or interest that is important to them. This shared object of social activity is a very powerful generator of change, unlocking a range of possibilities, actions and reactions from activities performed in a shared environment. But how do individuals participate in online communities and what influences them to alter the way in which they participate?

We perfromed daily observations on user participatory behaviour (user activities) in 50 online communities using public domain - anonymous data available in the communities. The specific communities were selected because they are related to learning and support learning activities within their networks although they include a range of social objects including music, art, research, games, languages, open source software, open educational resources among others. An observational analysis methodology was used in order to understand user activities in online communities and to investigate systematic patterns of behaviour that users follow. The resulting observations immersed after spending a period of time studying the specific sites, not only recording user actions but also seeking to understand the community environment and user activities as they naturally occurred.       

As a technique of observation we made a very conscious decision of recording and coding computer logs without having any direct involvement with the end users and we didnt record their activities in a richer format (video, audio) because we wanted to prevent any actions that would influence user behaviour, minimising technological and human intrusion in user activities, thus making the observational analysis sounder and allowing us to focus our analysis on activity types and patterns of behaviours. For the next phase of this research work, however, we plan to organise deeper behavioural experimentations involving different qualitative research techniques.

Initial findings of our research indicate that users connect, participate, contribute and collaborate on a shared objective, transferring information and pooling knowledge within and between communities in four different modes: a. Browse, gather and share content; b. Give / receive feedback and expertise; c. Collaborate and jointly decide about actions; and d. Share control over the community and content.

During this research we discovered that the way a user participated in an online community is not just related to the level of engagement and the mode in which he / she decides to participate, but is also influenced by several hidden elements that affect the user's willingness and way of participating, i.e. reciprocity, identity, real-world probes. These elements are not immediately evident in the user actions that we observe in the "visible" layer, but can be inferred by analysing user reactions. They form an underground "hidden" network, an "invisible" layer that affects how users participate in the community. When the dynamics of the element formations change there is a shift in position or switching between modes for the user. The process of the elements interacting and forming an underground "hidden" network which affects user participation, seems to mimic the "fairy rings" phenomenon occurring in nature. We call this process a "fairy ring" of participation - participation that emerges like "fairy rings" in online communities - because although the "visible" layer shows the user activities in different modes, it is the "invisible" network of element interactons that controls and influences these activities.

Engestrom talks about mycorrhizae-like formations, an "invisible organic texture underneath visible fungi" to explain powerful underground activities - wildfire activities -  that occur through "horizontal and multidimensional connections". Such formations are also observed when a radically spreading underground network of fungi activity results in a ring or arc formation of mushrooms. This biological process is also known as a "fairy ring" of mushrooms dependable on a network of fibres underground that is not visible.

Future work will be important to support our claims and identify the specific role of each of the elements on participatory behaviour in online communities. Via the Open Learning Network (OLnet) and following an open scientific inquiry approach and an open research paradigm we plan to share these observations with a wider audience of practitioners, researchers and theorists for all to test and contest our arguments, and to enrich, question, or support our model.