Editing Building Successful Online Communities (Fall 2016) (section)

== Organization ==

This course is organized into two components that roughly span the first and second halves of the quarter.

=== Component 1: The Theory and Practice of Online Communities ===

[[Image:Kraut_and_resnick-bsoc.jpg|right]]

In the first half of the class (Weeks 1-6), the readings will look to theories that can help explain how and why online communities succeed and fail and how and why they grow or shrink. In each of the weeks in this period, we will read from the book we'll be using as a textbook: Kraut et al.'s '''Building Successful Online Communities''' (BSOC). Here is the citation:

:''Kraut, Robert E., and Paul Resnick. Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. The MIT Press, 2012.''

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/building-successful-online-communities MIT Press] sells the book for $22.00 in a digital format, $31.00 in paperback, and $41.00 in hardcover. [http://www.amazon.com/Building-Successful-Online-Communities-Evidence-Based/dp/0262016575/ Amazon] sells the book for $35.00 in hardcover and $17 for the Kindle version. Wikipedia has [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780262016575 this long list of possible book sources].

More or less following the organizations of BSOC, we will focus on these key drivers of participation in online communities:

* ''Motivation'': How do online communities incentivize participation?
* ''Commitment'': How do online communities build relationships to keep individuals involved?
* ''Rules and Governance'': How do online communities create norms, rules, and governance?
* ''Newcomers'': How do online communities attract — or fail to attract — newcomers?
* ''Creation'': How should one start a new online community?

In order to ground the theoretical readings during the first half of the quarter, there will be weekly assignments that provide a structured opportunity to learn about and become involved in [https://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia].

You should keep in mind that the bulk of the reading in the course — and most of the most difficult material — will be front-loaded in this first five week period. The goal is to make sure that you have all the tools you'll need by the end of Week 5 so that you can use this material to focus on your projects in earnest.

=== Component 2: Examples and Challenges ===

In the second half of the course, we will focus less on theory and more on examples of online communities and on applications, examples, and challenges, associated with online communities.

Our reading during the second part of the quarter will be focused on cases studies. We will also focus on in-class discussions and exercises that prompt critical consideration of how online communities take place in different domains as well as the challenges associated with using online communities. Our goal here is to build up the ability to critically understand these communities in terms of the theory we covered earlier.

In general, readings during this second component will be on the lighter side and there will be no weekly assignments other than reading. The readings are lighter during this component because I'm expecting you to be spending time outside of class working on your projects.