Editing Building Successful Online Communities (Fall 2024) (section)

== Overview and Learning Objectives ==

Today, online communities are central parts of each of our daily lives and have an important impact on our cultural, social, and economic experience of the world and each other. This course combines an in-depth look into several decades of research into online communities with exercises that aim to give students experience applying this research to the evaluation of and hands-on participation in online communities.

As students of communication in the twenty-first century, I expect that many of you taking this course will work in jobs that involve communicating in, working with, or managing online communities. This class seeks to inform these experiences by helping you learn how to use and contribute to online communities more effectively and construct, improve, or design your online communities.

I will consider the course a complete success if every student can do all of these things at the end of the quarter:

* Write and speak fluently about the rules and norms of the Wikipedia community and demonstrate this fluency through successful contributions to Wikipedia and clear reflections on these issues.
* Recall, compare, and give examples of key theories that seek to explain why some online communities grow and attract participants while others do not.
* Demonstrate an ability to critically apply the theories from the course to evaluate a real online community and a real challenge or set of challenges of your choice.
* Engage with the course material and compellingly present your ideas and reflections in writing and orally.

Finally, I want your work in this class to help you in concrete ways. This might be having a great answer in a job interview when it's time to convince the interviewer that you have much to offer. Maybe it's having a piece of work you can share with others. Maybe it's applying ideas from this class to a new assignment at work. Maybe it's seeing your world in a new way that helps you solve a problem. Or maybe it's just having an answer when someone asks skeptical questions about what you got from studying Communication.  Although it's not possible to evaluate this objective, and it won't be reflected in your grade, it's the thing I care most about and the reason I'm excited about teaching—both this class and in general.

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