Collection, evaluation, and diffusion of information in online communities

In this thesis, I study a number of online information communities to understand how open practices are currently used in supporting community functions. By examining how communities operate, I hope to provide individuals and corporations interested in creating such communities with a good starting point. The communities examined, some corporate and some user sponsored, share different types of information and have different intents. I analyzed the communities in terms of their openness in the following three major community functions: information collection, information evaluation, and information diffusion. The benefits and challenges of open practices are discussed and the tradeoffs involved in selecting the most appropriate practice for each major community function are presented.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Mamas, Evangelos

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric von Hippel.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35108

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35108