This project explores the building of a positive and engaging online virtual community on a mobile platform to better support experiencers of chronic mental conditions such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and learning disabilities. The research aims to answer two questions: how to build such a community and whether different conditions require different communities and have different needs in peer-to-peer online health platforms. The design concept builds upon previous studies of engagement and connection correlating with “positive psychosocial outcomes”, and the rise of online healthcare. This paper describes the design process, explains the reasoning behind the design decisions, and showcases the resulting mobile platform prototype. Outcomes from this exploration contribute to the field of interaction design in furthering understanding in both designing workshops for more sensitive and personal demographics, and in building the beginnings of a supportive online virtual community.

Cette recherche explique la formation de l’engagement dans les communautés virtuelles, ainsi que ses déterminants. Bien qu'il existe de nombreuses études sur l'engagement, nous nous concentrons sur l'engagement en ligne, en examinant l'effet des leaders d'opinion au sein des communautés virtuelles. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous avons examiné quatre différents types de communautés virtuelles par une méthode netnographique. De plus, nous avons mené des entretiens avec les experts des marques pour comprendre comment ils abordent l'engagement en ligne. Nos résultats montrent qu’en plus de l'engagement envers la marque et de l’engagement envers la communauté, il existe un autre type d’engagement au sein de la communauté virtuelle. Cet engagement est envers une personne : le leader d’opinion. Dans cette recherche, nous avons développé une échelle de mesure d’engagement envers le leader d’opinion. Les résultats de notre étude quantitative affirment la fiabilité et la validité de cette échelle. Ainsi, les résultats indiquent que les bénéfices perçus et l’engagement envers le leader d’opinion ont des effets positifs sur l’engagement envers la communauté. Cette recherche permet d'approfondir les connaissances théoriques liées à l’engagement en ligne. Elle permet également aux professionnels du marketing d’utiliser les communautés virtuelles plus efficacement pour leurs stratégies de communication. / This research explains the formation of commitment in virtual communities, as well as its determinants. Although there are many studies about commitment, we focus on online commitment, by examining the effect of opinion leaders in virtual communities. To reach this goal, we examined four different types of virtual communities using a netnographic method. Besides that, we conducted interviews with brand experts to understand how they approach online commitment. Our results show that, in addition to brand commitment and community commitment, there is another type of commitment in the virtual community which is towards to a person: opinion leader. In this research, we developed a scale of commitment to the opinion leader. The results of our quantitative study confirm the reliability and validity of this scale. Thus, the results indicate that, perceived benefits and commitment to the opinion leader have positive effects on community commitment. This research allows to deepen the theoretical knowledge related to online commitment. It also allows marketing professionals to use virtual communities more effectively for their communication strategies.

Adopting the view that a virtual community is an influential social entity, this study provides a theoretical framework that identifies a linkage among the individual values of virtual community members, commercial orientation of virtual communities and attitudes towards the information provided by virtual communities. The present study suggests that individual values (i.e., purposive, self-discovery, social and entertainment) influence the selection of virtual communities. The community's commercial orientation (i.e., commercial or noncommercial), in turn, influences the individual attitudes towards the information provided by the communities. Credibility, relevance and empathy are the proposed attitudes that individuals may form towards the information provided in virtual communities. The proposed model provides valuable implications for marketers and business people who want to source virtual communities as viable marketing channels.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life around the world, and the (traditional) educational system came to a screeching halt. Educational systems, including physical education teacher education, moved to remote and online teaching modalities almost overnight. This shift, coupled with the cancellation of academic conferences, resulted in many physical education teacher education faculty members feeling isolated and uncertain in their pedagogical approaches. In April 2020, the PETE Collaborative was formed. Initial meetings centered on faculty-related concerns for how to modify content and provide meaningful opportunities for preservice teachers to engage in field experiences during the pandemic. As the community grew, so did the purpose of the Collaborative, which adapted to meet the needs of the members it was established to connect. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to tell the story of the PETE Collaborative, describe its theoretical underpinnings and provide some thoughts for the future of the initiative.

Online Communities of Practices (CoPs) is emerging as a major form for knowledge sharing in this era of information revolution. Due to the advancement of technology and ease of internet access in every part of the world, people began to get more and more involved in online CoPs to share knowledge. The defining characteristic of a Community of Practice is the interaction between members in order to jointly determine and embrace goals, eventually resulting in shared practices. Crucial to the success of a Community of Practice is the engagement between community members. Without engagement, a Community of Practice can not share knowledge and achieve its negotiated goals. To that end, there is a need to examine, why do people engage in an online discussion, what role domain experts play to keep on-line discussion alive and how to develop a ''right intervention'' to maintain and stimulate participants for engagement in on-line community. This thesis studied eight Communities of Practices that are being deliberately formed to facilitate knowledge sharing in the online community and describes an exploratory study of knowledge sharing within Communities of Practices (CoPs) by investigating eight CoPs ¿Start up Nation, All nurses, Young Enterpener, Teneric, SCM Focus, Systems Dynamics, Mahjoob and Alnj3 CoPs. The CoPs under investigation shared the following characteristics: permanent life span, created by interested members (i.e. bottom-up rather than top-down management creation), have a high level of boundary crossing, have more than 700 members who come from disparate locations and organizations, have voluntary membership enrollment, high membership diversity, high topic¿s relevance to members, high degree of reliance on technology, and are moderated. Data were gathered on the eight CoPs through online observations and online questionnaire survey. Results show that in each of the case study the most common type of activity performed by members of each CoP was sharing knowledge, followed by socialsing. Regarding the types of knowledge shared, the most common one across all CoPs was practical and general knowledge. The types of practical knowledge, however, varied in each CoP. The study also discovered that storytelling extensively enhances knowledge transfer and participants¿ interpersonal communications in eight communities under investigation. What were also notable in this study were the stories discussed in a CoP remains in the archive, what are more likely to generate interest and curiosity on the topic among inactive members who ultimately facilitates knowledge transfer. In this study it is also evident that successful topics with successful conclusion (in terms that the original query was answered) will not necessary get high responses and vice versa. An analysis of selected topics in the eight case studies has shown that some successful topics have few replies and vice versa, where many topics ended with open conclusion or they were unsuccessful in terms that the original query was not answered satisfactory. Therefore, it is not necessary that successful topic will get high number of responses as there are some successful topics which have limited number of replies. Overall, it is found that, topic may play a major role in the success of online discussion. It is observed in the study that members normally use short messages rather long messages and usually discusses more than one topic within one thread. Practical implications for knowledge sharing in online communities of practice were discussed, along with some recommendations for future research.

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Aus der Einleitung: "Virtuelle Gemeinschaften sind wie andere Gemeinschaften ein Zusammenschluss von Menschen, charakterisiert durch ein Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl und eine Abgrenzung nach außen. In diesen Gemeinschaften gelten Regeln der Gruppenbildung, Gruppendynamik und sozialer Interaktion. Um in sozialen Umfeldern erfolgreich zu agieren, ist es wichtig, ein Selbstbild zu besitzen, eine eigene Identität. Diese dient sowohl zur Selbst- als auch zur Fremdwahrnehmung."

Zielsetzung, Methodik und Aufbau des Artikels Virtuelle Communities (auch Online Communities, virtuelle Gemeinschaften oder Virtual Communities) stellen einen relativ neuen und bisher nur begrenzt erforschten Untersuchungsgegenstand dar. Eine virtuelle Gemeinschaft ist eine Menge von Menschen, die sich aufgrund eines gemeinsamen Interesses, eines gemeinsamen Problems oder einer gemeinsamen Aufgabe zusammenfindet und für das Interagieren unabhängig von Zeit und ihrer tatsächlichen physischen Lokation ist (Leimeister et al. 2002). Der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (IKT) kommt in diesem Zusammenhang eine elementare Bedeutung zu, da sie die geforderte Überwindung von Raum und Zeit ermöglichen kann (Hakansson/Johanson 1998). Mögliche Anwendungsbereiche von virtuellen Communities in und zwischen Organisationen reichen vom Gebiet der Kundenschnittstellen in Unternehmen (Customer Relationship Management, One-to-One Marketing (Stolpmann 2000)) über den organisationsinternen Wissenstransfer (Community-Plattformen als Wissensmanagement-Tool, (Schmidt 2000)) bis hin zu neuen Modellen der Nachfragebündelung (Armstrong/Hagel III 1995, 1996) und somit virtuellen Gemeinschaften als neuen eigenständigen, IKT-ermöglichten Organisationsformen mit eigenen Geschäfts-, Service- und Betreibermodellen (Hagel III/Armstrong 1997).

全球部落格的熱潮和影響力，吸引許多國外企業紛紛成立企業部落格，然而台灣的企業部落格仍非常少。本研究欲了解為什麼台灣企業部落格的發展較國外落後，以及台灣已成立的企業部落格，其成立的動機、經營部落格社群的作法，和部落格帶給企業的效益。 本研究以Rogers (2003)的創新決策過程為骨幹，探討台灣企業採用部落格決策的各個階段。並以虛擬社群成員發展的前三個階段：吸引會員、增加參與、建立忠貞，探討企業如何經營虛擬社群，以及透過Prahalad & Ramswamy (2000)提出的共創價值平台的四個要素，評估企業部落格應具備的條件。本研究採取個案研究法，從十家台灣持續經營的企業部落格中，選擇瀏覽人次及部落格上互動最多的三家個案：Yahoo!奇摩拍賣部落格、風潮音樂部落格、毛寶Simple Life部落格，進行深度的個案訪談。另外訪談兩位企業部落格的專家，了解台灣企業部落格的發展概況。 透過個案研究，本研究發現目前台灣已成立的企業部落格，通常是由熟悉部落格的員工提出採用部落格的構想，主管同意給予時間經營，是一個由下而上的過程，和企業一般的決策過程不同。而在企業部落格的經營方面，企業可以和個人部落客合作，提供專業、有趣的內容吸引網友前來。部落格應時常邀請顧客互動，而企業希望以部落格和顧客共創價值，應具備以下條件：企業與顧客都感興趣的主題、顧客可以獲得有價值的資訊和美好的經驗、真實透明的原則、制定網友回應文章的規則。在建立網友忠誠度方面，企業部落格經營者應多呈現個人的特色，並熱情回應網友，時常拜訪網友的部落格，與網友建立關係。 企業若能持續投入時間經營部落格，只需花費少許的錢，能透過部落格與顧客共創價值：與顧客對話、顧客知識、運用顧客口耳相傳的力量。這些價值挹注回企業，能帶來的效益：增加企業的能見度、提昇人性化的品牌形象、澄清媒體錯誤報導、提升搜尋引擎結果的排名。然而，目前台灣企業部落格的數量仍不多，本研究認為原因為：台灣本身部落格的發展起步慢之外；台灣企業看重短期的效益的心態；相較於國外，台灣少有企業高層想以部落格和顧客直接對話；台灣還沒有專業的企業部落格顧問形成，以輔導企業。

本研究設定參與批踢踢美妝版討論的年輕彩妝族群為目標研究對象，假設透過彩妝族群群體討論彩妝議題的方式，不僅可以掌握彩妝活動本身的形貌、內容與特性；更可以由討論呈現看出彩妝實踐者在日常生活中執行彩妝活動的方式，以及其對彩妝活動投入的情感乃至於相關的價值傳遞，藉此得以推敲彩妝族群熱衷於化妝的理由，解析美妝論述的內涵。 綜合網路文本分析、深度訪談與田野觀察三法蒐集資料，將網路社群互動特性區隔為媒介與議題兩大面向，受媒介特性影響BBS美妝版之互動有團體意識、網路從眾性、網路規則與團體極化四大特色，回歸議題討論方式則可區隔為消費、妝容打造技巧與意見交流三大類型討論。由此可知，「美的意識」與「化妝的價值」是美妝論述的重要核心，並據此結合學理發展討論進行深度概念分析。 本研究認為化妝第一層次的意義是融入社會的具體策略，行動者認為透過此策略得以幫助自己以較有利的正向姿態進入社會生活，這不僅肇於實踐者將化妝與「正面特質」高度連結，更重要的是生活中化妝儀式的執行過程的勞動成品，除了更「好」的身體外，還有稱為「自信」的精神成分推動著化妝儀式的永續執行。此外，化妝的正向感受亦來自過程中對於器物與技法的掌握控制，化妝活動的執行並非渾然天成的性別天賦，而是學習教養的歷程；技法操演的遊戲樂趣、對彩妝品項的物件愛戀，創造了彩妝實踐同中有異的細微差別，帶來探索多變的快意。擁有並隨心所欲掌握那些許的不同，是推動每日演練化妝並從中得到難以言傳之滿足感的深層動力。 化妝作為當代日益普及的社會現象，作為年輕世代、網路彩妝社群的特殊文化現象，不可單純由消費社會印象管理的角度解讀，亦不可僅由性別批判觀點切入。本研究一方面不忽略消費社會所提供之場景，特別是化妝活動對商品消費的深度涉入，以及消費社會對身體裝飾提供之大量參考文本，提供本研究別具備脈絡的解讀觀點。另一方面亦不忽略化妝作為女性特殊經驗的觀點，重視且回歸受訪者真實經驗為論證基礎，同理彩妝實踐者之情感並認可其能動性，落實真正實踐者發聲的研究特性，並不忘環境結構對個體之影響，提出具脈絡的社會性觀點陳述解釋彩妝文化現象，是為本文最具特色與價值的研究貢獻。 / This article takes members of virtual community on PTT’s MakeUp conference as main research target. It is assumed that that the makeup issues discussed within bulletin board conference not only depicts the figure and key factors of makeup activity but also proves makeup as an important roles in daily life. All above are deep influenced and composed by beliefs or ideologies of contemporary social context and these insights show us a way to find answers to the question: why girls are so obsessed with makeup. Through text analysis of conference within BBS, interviewing in depth and field research, this article categorizes the characteristics of communication within MakeUp into two perspectives: media oriented and topic oriented. The former based on the emphasis of virtual community perspective includes community solidarity, conformity, netiquette and polarization. The later based on the viewpoint of the topic under discussion includes consumption, makeup skill sharing and opinion trade. This shows the consciousness of being beautiful and the value of makeup are the core of cosmetic discourse. This research reveals that the behavior of makeup signifies two layers of meanings nowadays. The first layer is to take makeup as a beneficial posture for entering social or public life. This fact demonstrates: (1) the high connection between positive values and makeup (2) positive thinking toward applying cosmetics (while these labor products are made) -- Approaching a nicer body and ‘self-confidence’ sustainingly motivates the ritual. Besides, the complete control over cosmetics goods and the face-building process are also the source of pleasure which is not only the second meaning of makeup but also the deeper driving energy of daily makeup ritual. Taking makeup as a spreading cultural phenomenon, it can not be understood from single viewpoint such as consumerism or feminism. For this reason, this article on the one hand takes the consumer society as a background context to get the idea of using cosmetics to make-up the face in daily life. It on the other hand goes deeply into the experiences and practice of those who really love makeup. Through these aspects, this essay eventually gives a sketch for contemporary makeup culture study on both social structure and personal agency as a major contribution.