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Broadly, such groups need tools that support information organization and retrieval, discussion and argumentation, and negotiation and decision. Some of this technology is ready for wide-scale deployment, and some is in the research stage. This projects aims to evaluate emerging technology in the context of the needs of on-line global communities, while simultaneously envisioning what kinds of communities are possible given the proposed tools. To accomplish this, we need equally the visions of the technologist, the sociologist and the community activist.
The first step is to create a framework and a process where people can share ideas and produce real applications to be tested and iteratively improved. We need to attract a critical mass of users and software developers who are committed to the project's continuing success and evolution.
In order to provide cross-platform support, we will use Java, which supports the Windows, Linux, and Solaris operating systems, as well as MacOS X and other UNIX platforms, with a single source codebase. Java is a modern, object-oriented language with very broad, freely available libraries, which provide support for such features as email access, networking, database, XML, GUI, help systems, web access, etc. This allows us to concentrate on building our applications.
There are surprisingly few tools that take advantage of the valuable information contained in the message streams of tech-groups. The current practice is to provide a Web-based or Usenet interface to the message archives, sorted by thread or date. Sometimes a keyword search facility is provided. A significant improvement would be to add better searching and organizing capabilities for these groups.
The advantage of this approach are:
There is much current research being done in information retrieval, document categorization, user interface, information display, etc. It may be possible that our project can provide an environment for testing new research.
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques may eventually provide
important capabilities, our emphasis in this project will be tools that
assist humans, sometimes called Intelligence
Augmentation (IA). This kind of software keeps humans "in the loop",
with an emphasis on the efficient use of people's time. One of our primary
long-term goals is to explore the possibility of what might be called emergent
intelligence in on-line global communities.
The most prominant feature is the searching of message archives using LSA. This feature should provide the additional benefit over existing practices to offset the cost of installing and learning a new application. The other important feature will be the creation and maintenance of the message archives. The initial release will consist of a server and 3 client applications. The clients are all pure Java implementations, while the server has some native code. Each application supports a specific role that a user might play.
FAQuery This is a simplified version for people who want to just ask a question. Its GUI must be simple and intuitive; it probably needs an implementation that runs in a web browser.
FAQOtech This is for "tech-support" personell who answer questions. Connects to an IMAP server to get incoming messages, and allows user to efficiently query message archives and respond with an email. Makes suggested changes to the database. Any number of people can play this role simultaneously.
FAQOwner This is for the owner of the database, who decides
what messages are saved in it, and approves any changes to it. Only one
person per database has this role, but in the future we will add support
for multiple owners in a relationship of trust.
John Caron, Experiments
with LSA Scoring: Optimal Rank and Basis, SIAM Computational IR Workshop.
October 2000.
John Caron, Design for the FAQ Organizer Application, Dec 1999.
John Caron, Wide
Area Collaboration: A Proposed Application. April 1998.
John Caron, Experiments with LSA Scoring: Optimal Rank and Basis, SIAM Computational IR Workshop. October 2000.
John Caron, Design for the FAQ Organizer Application, Dec 1999.
John Caron, Wide Area Collaboration: A Proposed Application. April 1998.
[Kollock and Smith 1996] Peter Kollock and Marc Smith, Managing the Virtual Commons: Cooperation and Conflict in Computer Communities. Pp. 109-128 in Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social, and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Amsterdam: John Benjamins,1996
[Udell 1999] Jon Udell, Practical Internet Groupware, O'Reilley and Associates, Sebastapol, CA, 1999
------------------------
Network Structure in Virtual Organizations (printed)
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue4/ahuja.html
"Lipnack & Stamps (1997) define a virtual team as "a group of people
who interact through interdependent tasks guided by
common purpose" that "works across space,
time, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of
communication technologies" (p. 7). We define
a virtual organization as a geographically distributed organization whose
members are bound by a long-term common interest
or goal, and who communicate and coordinate their work through
information technology. "
"Previous research suggests that virtual organizations tend to be non-hierarchical
(Beyerlein & Johnson, 1994; Camillus, 1993;
Goldman, et al., 1995; Mills, 1991) and decentralized
(Baker, 1992). "
"Thus, degree of hierarchy, centralization, and hierarchical levels
are the three distinct dimensions of structure employed in this
study. Degree of hierarchy (Krackhardt, 1994)
is reflected by the degree to which relationships in a network are directly
or
indirectly reciprocal. Reciprocal relationships
indicate teamwork, while an abundance of unreciprocated relationships are
seen
in more hierarchical networks. Centralization
reflects the extent to which a network or group is organized around its
focal point
(Freeman, 1979). It is a measure of integration
or cohesion of the group. A centralized network may reflect an uneven
distribution of knowledge such that knowledge
is concentrated in the focal points of the network. Finally, hierarchical
levels
(Hummon & Fararo, 1995) reflect the number
of levels one must go through in order to obtain information. An existence
of
hierarchical levels indicates that members
must go through someone rather than directly obtain information from the
source. "
Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue4/jarvenpaa.html
Characteristics of the WWW Text: Tracing Discursive Strategies
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol5/issue1/mitra.html
The notion of the "discursive structure" merits further elaboration,
as this will be a central construct later in the
essay. Here
the notion of discourse refers specifically to the organization of texts
beyond the specific use of
symbols where
discourses are composed of a network of texts. Such networks are implicated
by ideological
concerns, and
the way in which the network is produced, circulated and maintained reflects
the ideological
structure of
a particular community or society at a moment in time. As Fiske (1987)
argues, a discourse is a
system of representation
that "circulate[s] a coherent set of meanings about an important topic
area." From this
perspective,
the idea of the discourse as used and extended in this essay refers specifically
to the network of
texts that appear
on the Web and address a specific area of interest.
On Utopias and Dystopias: Toward an Understanding of the Discourse Surrounding
the Internet
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol6/issue2/fisher.html
"As we have already argued, one of the effects of a cultural lag are
extreme and unrealistic
interpretations of the technology within the discourse surrounding it.
This antinomy pits the
political utility of emerging information technology with the potential
for that same technology to
further fragment society and increase anomie among its members. In the
section that follows,
we describe this dichotomy in terms of utopian and dystopian positions.
Perhaps the most salient aspect of the utopian position is the implied
notion that there are
technological solutions to social problems (see, for example, Budge, 1996;
Cox, 1999; Ward,
1997). These solutions are often described in terms of technology’s effects
on communitarian
and populist forms of democratic participation. The communitarian argument
suggests that the
Internet will facilitate civic engagement by increasing the ease of communication
among
citizens by transcending geographic and social boundaries. The argument
suggests that the
bonds produced by this interaction will in turn encourage the formation
of new deliberative
spaces and new forms of collective action. The populist model, in contrast,
emphasizes
technology’s role in altering the interaction between citizens and government.
Ward (1997)
points out that the mechanisms of change are typically described in terms
of on-line referenda
and initiatives.
The utopian position is largely premised on the notion that the communication
medium is
paramount in determining effects (McLuhan, 1964). This approach usually
touts the democratic
potential of computer-mediated communication by referencing the actual
design of the network.
Through this network that provides communicative interaction, democratic
participation and a
sense of community are facilitated (Rheingold, 1993). Stated simply, utopians
posit that
cyberspace will make it easier for people to communicate both politically
and otherwise. The
utopian position tends to follow through with one of Habermas’s main interests
(1992, 1989),
arguing that the communicative action, which emerges as a result of this
interaction, can limit
the subversion of deliberative democracy at the hands of market-driven
imperatives.
In contrast to the utopian perspective that focuses on the effects of the
Internet on society, the
dystopian position has its roots in understanding the phenomenon of the
experience (see, for
example, Barber, 1998; Slouka, 1995; Stoll, 1995). Rather than viewing
the Internet merely as a
tool, the dystopian position emphasizes the potential of the medium to
affect communication in
such a way that it may negatively alter the practices and spaces of communication
that had
previously nurtured democracy. One such interpretation can be seen in the
work of Timothy
Luke, who says that as a result of the Internet, "Power shifts focus, speed
overcomes space,
orders become disordered, time moves standards, community loses centers,
[and] values
change denomination as the settings of industrialized human agency are
completely shaken"
(1998, p. 125).
The dystopian argument claims that democracy crumbles as the social fabric
of society
becomes fragmented and people become more isolated from one another. Within
many of the
dystopian arguments, the influence of Arendt’s arguments concerning totalitarian
regimes are
visible (Holub, 1991). In particular, the effect of society’s reliance
on communications
technology will be the same results as Arendts found in her work on the
"iron band of terror"
(1973). The dystopian position also argues that a similar fragmentation
will result if face-to-face
interactions are supplanted by mediated ones (Barber, 1998).
In addition to the loss of strong bonds among members of a society, many
critics agree that the
Internet will limit connections between central and peripheral actors in
society (see, e.g.
Castells, 1998; Luke, 1998; Soros, 1998). Participants at the center of
an information-based
communicative structure and those on the periphery of that structure will
be less connected than
ever before. In addition, the Internet is expected to disturb political
life through what Derrida
calls "accelerated rhythms" (1994). Rather than facilitating political
engagement among
citizens, this accelerated rhythm is described by dystopians as impeding
thoughtful
deliberation.
Beyond these dominant themes of utopian and dystopian visions of the Internet,
it should be
noted that a third theme, which can be described as technorealism, is also
represented in the
literature (see, for example, Bimber, 1998; Calhoun, 1998; Monberg, 1998).
This position tends
to be held by journalists and technology professionals as well as academics
and usually takes
a more modest approach to claims concerning the Internet’s potential impact
(Wilhelm, 2000).
It usually presents a more tempered view of the Internet’s effects on society
in comparison to
the utopian and dystopian positions. Calhoun (1998, p. 381), for example,
argues that ultimately
the effects of the Internet "matter much more as a supplement to face-to-face
community
organization and movement activity than as a substitute for it." Technorealistic
ideas are
diverse, but they seem to be premised on the idea that is best expressed
by Monberg (1998),
who says that whatever questions we are asking about the Internet today,
the only thing we can
know for certain is that we are asking the wrong questions. This notion
that the medium is too
new for scholars to determine effects is consistent with Ogburn’s idea
of a cultural lag.
In addition to the academic predictions of the Internet’s impact on society,
there have been a
number of popular pronouncements concerning the technology. Utopian and
dystopian visions
of technology are probably most clearly manifest in artifacts of mass culture
such as novels, art,
and the media. Ever since Gibson’s Neuromancer was released in 1984, his
work has
embodied a dystopian vision of what the world is becoming with the advent
of the Internet. His
characters create the technology but are eventually trapped/controlled
by it. Stephenson’s Snow
Crash (1992), in contrast, presents a mixed utopian/dystopian cyberworld
in which people can
possess superpowers through their Internet alter egos. In the end, the
young and the hip save
the day from the potential evil that has threatened to destroy the Internet
as they know it. Like
the novel, corporate advertising has also promoted utopian visions of the
technology. In an
MCI/Worldcom advertisement, for instance, different voices states "there
is no race, there is no
gender . . . I can be whoever I want to be."
Dystopian interpretations of the Internet are no less prevalent today.
Both privacy and content
on the Internet have been a subject of great social concern and represent
two of the most
dominant debates about the potential negative effects of this communication
technology.
Stories about cyber-lurkers and personal information being obtained through
the Internet
prevail. Questions about content on the Internet confront Internet users
from all sectors of
society. At a recent conference, for example, an academic argued that with
all of the indecent
information and cyber-smut on the Internet, it was an open question whether
it was appropriate
to use the Internet for publication or distribution of scholarly work.
Similarly, the popular media
have recognized the dystopian aspects of the Internet. "All the trash,
flotsam and spillage of our
society gets its moment there, where the tiniest obsession has its spot
on the shelf, right next to
Bach and charity and sunsets" (Okrent 1999, pp. 39-40)."
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