Discovery Park

Ben Shneiderman
University of Maryland - College Park

April 9, 2013
LWSN 3102 AB
3:30-5:00PM

While researchers are far from having reliable predictive models of online community success, a growing body of literature and inspirational examples can provide guidance for aspiring community managers. We know that design principles for websites can make a substantial difference in getting first-time users to return or regular visitors to become content contributors and eventually active collaborators.  Getting active collaborators to become committed leaders is yet a bigger challenge, but having such leaders is one of the keys to community success.  These leaders help set behavior norms by their examples, take the community into new directions, and deal with a wide variety of threats.  Successful communities must develop leaders who create resilient social structures to deal with serious threats from hackers who maliciously violate privacy, attack servers, vandalize content, or provide misleading content.  This talk will cover examples and a road map for research.