{"id":{"repo_id":"vt","oai_identifier":"oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/34244"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/vt/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/34244","repository":{"repo_id":"vt","name":"Virginia Tech","base_url":"https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"A Tale of Two Sites: An Explorative Study of the Design and Evaluation of Social Network Sites","abstract":"Social Network Sites allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within a system. Such sites are generally centered around a particular activity, such as maintaining social relationships or uploading user created content. Increasingly, niche domains such as education, healthcare and software development have been exploring the creation of social network sites centered around the activities of the domain. This has led to an increasing focus on the processes involved in designing and evaluating these sites. We argue that social network sites require a specialized focus in their design and evaluation on the social utility of the features on the site. We have created two social network sites for niche communities: Colloki, a conversation platform designed for members of local communities; and CATspace, a social repository of Computer Science assignments, designed for use by CS instructors and students. In this thesis, we describe the motivation, design and implementation of these two sites. We provide a formative evaluation of these two sites, wherein we evaluate the usability, and study the perceived social affordances of individual features across the two site. Finally, we discuss future work towards building a framework for evaluating the social utility of Social Network Sites at a formative stage.","abstract_html":"Social Network Sites allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within a system. Such sites are generally centered around a particular activity, such as maintaining social relationships or uploading user created content. Increasingly, niche domains such as education, healthcare and software development have been exploring the creation of social network sites centered around the activities of the domain. This has led to an increasing focus on the processes involved in designing and evaluating these sites. We argue that social network sites require a specialized focus in their design and evaluation on the social utility of the features on the site. We have created two social network sites for niche communities: Colloki, a conversation platform designed for members of local communities; and CATspace, a social repository of Computer Science assignments, designed for use by CS instructors and students. In this thesis, we describe the motivation, design and implementation of these two sites. We provide a formative evaluation of these two sites, wherein we evaluate the usability, and study the perceived social affordances of individual features across the two site. Finally, we discuss future work towards building a framework for evaluating the social utility of Social Network Sites at a formative stage.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ahuja, Sameer"],"institution":"Virginia Tech","degree_name":"Master of Science","degree_level":"masters","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":"Computer Science","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":["Pérez-Quiñones, Manuel A."],"committee_members":["Edwards, Stephen H.","Kavanaugh, Andrea L."],"year":2009,"date_issued":"2009-07-17","date_published":"2009-07-17","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:19:49Z","subjects":["Design","Social Affordance","Usability Evaluation","Social Network Software"],"languages":[],"rights":["In Copyright"],"rights_urls":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["etd-07292009-181101"],"render_values":[{"text":"etd-07292009-181101","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34244","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.committeechair","label":"Committee Chair","values":["Pérez-Quiñones, Manuel A."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.committeemember","label":"Committee Member","values":["Edwards, Stephen H.","Kavanaugh, Andrea L."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ahuja, Sameer"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2014-03-14T20:42:12Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2014-03-14T20:42:12Z","2009-08-21"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2009-07-17"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Virginia Tech"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["masters"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Design","Social Affordance","Usability Evaluation","Social Network Software"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["In Copyright"]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["etd-07292009-181101"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34244"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Social Network Sites allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within a system. Such sites are generally centered around a particular activity, such as maintaining social relationships or uploading user created content. Increasingly, niche domains such as education, healthcare and software development have been exploring the creation of social network sites centered around the activities of the domain. This has led to an increasing focus on the processes involved in designing and evaluating these sites. We argue that social network sites require a specialized focus in their design and evaluation on the social utility of the features on the site. We have created two social network sites for niche communities: Colloki, a conversation platform designed for members of local communities; and CATspace, a social repository of Computer Science assignments, designed for use by CS instructors and students. In this thesis, we describe the motivation, design and implementation of these two sites. We provide a formative evaluation of these two sites, wherein we evaluate the usability, and study the perceived social affordances of individual features across the two site. Finally, we discuss future work towards building a framework for evaluating the social utility of Social Network Sites at a formative stage."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Master of Science"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["A Tale of Two Sites: An Explorative Study of the Design and Evaluation of Social Network Sites"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.committeechair":["Pérez-Quiñones, Manuel A."],"dc:contributor.committeemember":["Edwards, Stephen H.","Kavanaugh, Andrea L."],"dc:contributor.department":["Computer Science"],"dc:creator":["Ahuja, Sameer"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2014-03-14T20:42:12Z"],"dc:date.available":["2014-03-14T20:42:12Z","2009-08-21"],"dc:date.issued":["2009-07-17"],"dc:description.abstract":["Social Network Sites allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within a system. Such sites are generally centered around a particular activity, such as maintaining social relationships or uploading user created content. Increasingly, niche domains such as education, healthcare and software development have been exploring the creation of social network sites centered around the activities of the domain. This has led to an increasing focus on the processes involved in designing and evaluating these sites. We argue that social network sites require a specialized focus in their design and evaluation on the social utility of the features on the site. We have created two social network sites for niche communities: Colloki, a conversation platform designed for members of local communities; and CATspace, a social repository of Computer Science assignments, designed for use by CS instructors and students. In this thesis, we describe the motivation, design and implementation of these two sites. We provide a formative evaluation of these two sites, wherein we evaluate the usability, and study the perceived social affordances of individual features across the two site. Finally, we discuss future work towards building a framework for evaluating the social utility of Social Network Sites at a formative stage."],"dc:description.degree":["Master of Science"],"dc:identifier.other":["etd-07292009-181101"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34244"],"dc:publisher":["Virginia Tech"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright"],"dc:rights.uri":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dc:subject":["Design","Social Affordance","Usability Evaluation","Social Network Software"],"dc:title":["A Tale of Two Sites: An Explorative Study of the Design and Evaluation of Social Network Sites"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["masters"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science"],"thesis:institution_name":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:19:49Z"}