DHB: Collaborative Research: Solving Critical Problems in Online Groups

在线团体正变得越来越重要，例如，通过创建运行互联网的软件，建立历史？美国最大的百科全书，为数百万人提供社会支持，并增加跨越地理边界的人际关系的机会。无论群体在何种环境下运作，要想成功，所有人都必须面对三个关键挑战：(1)承诺：通过管理成员对群体的承诺和他们为群体努力的动机来吸引和留住成员；(2)协调：协调成员的行动以实现集体目标；(3)控制：确保成员遵守重要的群体规范。尽管一些在线团体非常成功，但也有许多失败了。庞大的规模、高流动率、薄弱的社交网络和贫乏的沟通渠道阻碍了许多在线群体克服这些挑战的能力。本研究的目标是通过以下方式帮助在线群组实现其巨大的承诺：(1)了解影响在线群组成功的因素；(2)揭示同样适用于线下群体的一般群体流程；(3)开发能够帮助在线团体实现其目标的技术干预。这项研究将调查三个最受欢迎的领域的群体。在线健康和技术支持，在线百科全书维基百科，以及历史上最流行的大型多人游戏魔兽世界。调查研究将使用数据挖掘技术，使用时间序列方法检查数千个在线群体的丰富档案和纵向数据。此外，干预研究将在调查研究之后采用旨在提高在线团体有效性的计算干预措施。这项研究将制定原则来解释影响在线团体和更普遍的团体成功的因素。在线团体在经济上和社会上都很重要，正如以下事实所表明的那样：流量排名前十的网站中有七个主要是在线团体网站（根据www.alexa.com）。由于在线小组的失败率很高，了解影响其有效性的因素对设计师和管理者来说至关重要。本项目的技术干预措施旨在改善其部署所在组的性能，并作为其他在线组后续设计工作的范例。

Online groups are becoming increasingly important, for example, by creating the software that runs the Internet, building history?s largest encyclopedia, providing social support to millions, and enhancing opportunities for interpersonal relationships that span geographic boundaries. Regardless of the environments in which groups operate, to be successful all must meet three critical challenges: (1) Commitment: gaining and retaining members by managing members' commitment to the group and their motivation to exert effort on its behalf, (2) Coordination: coordinating members' actions to achieve collective goals, and (3) Control: ensuring that members adhere to important group norms. Although some online groups are very successful, many others fail. The large size, high turnover, weak social networks, and impoverished communication channels typical of many online groups inhibit their ability to overcome these challenges. The goal of this research is to help online groups deliver on their tremendous promise by (1) understanding the factors that affect the success of online groups; (2) shedding light on general group processes that also apply to offline groups; and (3) developing technological interventions that can help online groups achieve their objectives. The research will examine groups in three highly popular domains ? online health and technical support, the online-encyclopedia Wikipedia, and the most popular massively multiplayer game in history, World of Warcraft. Investigatory studies will use data-mining techniques to examine rich archival, longitudinal data about thousands of online groups using time-series methods. In addition, interventionist studies will follow up the investigatory research with computational interventions designed to improve the effectiveness of online groups. This research will develop principles to explain the factors that influence the success of online groups and groups more generally. Online groups are economically and socially important, as indicated by the fact that seven of the top ten Internet sites by traffic (according to www.alexa.com) are primarily online group sites. Because online groups have high failure rates, knowledge about the factors that underlie their effectiveness is critical for designers and managers. This project's technological interventions are designed to improve the performance of the groups in which they are deployed and to serve as exemplars for subsequent design efforts in other online groups.