Peripheral members, or lurkers, make up the majority of membership in an online network, but not much is known about them as they are not publicly active (e.g. Post online). Data on the lurker population of Nurses and Health Care professionals in electronic Communities of Practice (eCoP) is also lacking. InspireNet was a British Columbia based virtual community that aimed to increase capacity for health services research for health care professionals. It had nearly 4000 members nationwide and it was an active community as users were posting on discussions and blogs daily. However, many members did not post online, so it was suspected a large lurker population existed. The purpose of the study was to conduct an exploratory study to understand the experience of lurkers on InspireNet and determine how nurses or health care professionals interacted, barriers to posting online, and whether or not they wished to remain a lurker Conventional content analysis was used as the methodology to conduct this qualitative study with 15 participants via online interviews. The results showed that lurking was not indicative of the level of engagement, as most were engaged in InspireNet content or were connected to other members (e.g. Core Members). Lurkers were not opposed to posting online, but required relevancy to their work and ease of using the website as prerequisites. Lurkers had difficulty finding information on the InspireNet website. It is important to engage all members of an online network. Strategies to engage lurkers include supporting their informational needs by improving website usability, incorporating advanced search features, and providing value (e.g. Relevant content, topics, and webinars). / Graduate

社群網站使用者不分年齡，幾乎沒有人不在這虛擬社交的浪潮上。儘管如此， 社群網站的交往卻不如現實般，社群中的絕大多數的內容是由少數發言者貢獻， 從來不發言的潛水者則佔了使用者基數的大部分。 本研究使用沈默螺旋理論的意見一致性概念與多種潛水動機作連接，藉此探 討發言者言論如何影響潛水者的動機選擇以及潛水行為表現。除此外，本研究藉 由同時使用社群聆聽技術和調查法作為研究方法，試圖以主、客觀區分兩種方法 並比較各自的益處和限制，也對社群聆聽技術只能使用發言者言論作為分析資料 來源的先天限制做出初步探討。 本研究收集到 599 份有效問卷和 285 篇社群網站文章，研究結果發現害怕被 孤立、社會性散漫兩種潛水動機完全中介了意見一致性對潛水行為的效果。主、 客觀研究方法的測量結果顯著相關，且對潛水動機之中介效果有相同預測能力。 / It is hard to find one had no experience using social networks in any age ranges. However, most of social network members are lurkers who barely post or comment to express their opinion. On the other hand, little regular posters contribute most content in every virtual society. This study used the concept of opinion congruency in spiral of silence theory to link up multiple lurking motives found by past studies in order to clarify how posters’ texts influence lurking motives and behavior. Besides, for the purpose of comparing pros and cons between social listening and survey, this study adopted both research methods to measure major opinion in discussion threads wherea seprated the two methods into subjective and objective ones. Also, this study would have preliminary discuss about the fact of limited analytical source of social listening. Collected 599 valid surveys and 285 social network discuss thread text, the result found that opinion congruency negatively influenced both lurking motives which positively influenced lurking behavior. The result also found that the subjective and objective research methods in this study were significantly related, and shared same predictive ability on both lurking motives’ mediated effect.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

潛水是網路社群中的普遍行為，並且潛水者常為網路社群中的多數，通常潛水者從社群中獲取得多，但卻貢獻得少，雖然對於整體社群無害，但對於網路社群的貢獻卻相當有限，無助於整體社群的發展與成長。因此，如何激發潛水者更積極參與互動討論，樂於貢獻一己之力，對於網路社群的發展甚為關鍵。特別是在數位學習環境中，更應該積極發展有效激發潛水者策略，以促進潛水者更積極參與社群互動討論的意願，提昇整體社群合作學習動力。而透過讓潛水者感受到自己參與社群互動的重要，提昇潛水者的社會知覺，是否有助於激發潛水者表現出更積極的互動行為，值得進行深入的探討。 因此，本研究基於提昇潛水者的社會知覺，於問題導向學習環境中發展「社會互動排名」與「學習夥伴推薦」激勵機制，以探究其對於激發潛水者在社群互動之「討論區與訊息區的文章張貼篇數及內容層次」、「四階段問題導向學習閱讀心得寫作成效」，以及學習社群中的「網路密度」、「網路直徑」、「中心度」。除此之外，也探究「外向－內向」、「人際和諧－人際問題」、「信任感－迫害感」等基本人格特質，是否與潛水者被激發與否的成效有關，進而歸納激發潛水者的具體有效策略。 研究結果顯示，具「社會互動排名」與「學習夥伴推薦」激勵機制之問題導向學習平台，對於提昇社群討論互動以及學習成效具有正向顯著效益；激勵機制確實能有效激發潛水者，降低潛水情形，並且實施激勵機制對於凝聚整體學習社群網絡亦具有正向的效用。 / Lurking is a common behavior in the network community, and lurkers often take the majority in the network community. They often get more from the community, but give less to it. To the whole community, although it doesn’t do any harm, the contribution they make to the network community is so limited, which can’t help the development and growth of the entire community. Therefore, it is quite crucial for the development of the network community about how to motivate the lurkers to participate in the interactive discussion and contribute to the community actively. Especially in the digital learning environment, it should actively develop the strategies to motivate the lurkers effectively, so as to promote the willingness of the lurkers to participate in the interactive discussion of the community more actively. In this way, it can improve the driving force of the cooperative learning in the community. It deserves deep exploration about whether it can help to motivate the lurkers to present more active behaviors in the interaction by making them feel important to participate in the community interaction and improving their social awareness. Therefore, based on the purpose of improving the social awareness of the lurkers, this study develops the motivation mechanism of “social interaction ranking” and ” learning partner recommendation” in the learning-oriented environment to explore the effects of motivating the lurkers in the community interaction, such as “the number and content levels of the articles posted in the forum and bulletin board”, “writing effects of the four-stage problem-based learning and reading”, as well as the “network density”, “network diameter” and “concentration” in the learning community. Besides, it also discusses whether the basic personality is correlated to the effect of motivating the lurkers, including “introversion-extraversion”, “interpersonal problems- interpersonal harmony”, “sense of persecution- sense of trust”, so as to further summarize the concrete and effective strategies of motivating the lurkers. The study results show the problem-based learning platform with the motivation mechanism of “social interaction ranking” and ” learning partner recommendation” show positive and significant benefits to improve the social discussion interaction and learning effect. Moreover, the motivation mechanism system is proven to motivate the lurkers and reduce the lurking situation effectively, and the practice of the motivation mechanism system has positive effect on the cohesion of the whole learning community.