Building Successful Online Communities (Fall 2016)
From CommunityData
- Building Successful Online Communities
- COM597 A - Masters of Communication in Communities and Networks (MCCN) Elective, Department of Communication
- Instructor: Benjamin Mako Hill (University of Washington)
- Course Websites:
- We will use Canvas for announcements, turning in assignments, and discussion
- For coordinating Wikipedia assignments, it will be helpful to refer to the WikiEdu class page and dashboard.
- Everything else will be linked on this page.
- Course Catalog Description:
- Before Wikipedia was created, there were seven very similar attempts to build online collaborative encyclopedias. Before Facebook, there were dozens of very similar social networks. Why did Wikipedia and Facebook take off when so many similar sites struggled? Why do some attempts to build communities online lead to large thriving communities while most struggle to attract even a small group of users?
- This class will begin with an introduction to several decades of research on computer-mediated communication and online communities to try and understand the building blocks of successful online communities. With this theoretical background in hand, every student will then apply this new understanding by helping to design, build, and improve a real online community.
