Making Online Communities Work
Kate Dibben
Online Communications Officer
kdibben@educationau.edu.au
EdNA Online, education.au limited

About EdNA
The EdNA Online gateway provides interfaces for all
Australian education and training sectors.
The aggregation of national services known as EdNA
Online is the only education and training repository in
Australia supported and funded nationally by all
education and training sectors and systems.
Alliances have been established with comparable
international bodies for exchange of resources. These
include the US Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)
and the MERLOT project.

Outcomes
Outcomes
•Understanding of the nature of online
communities.
•Understanding of how to find out about and join
online communities in education and training.
•Appreciation of issues related to creating,
maintaining and stimulating an online
community.

What are Online Communities?
A group of people – usually, like minded people come together online
to participate, debate and share information.
Online communities will use a range of online tools from discussion
forums, chat, discussion email lists, Information Management Systems
(WebCT) etc.
The website for an online community can serve several purposes:
•Provision of information about the community and how to participate;
•Hosting of the tools of communication and conferencing; and
• Knowledge management for the community – providing ways to
organise relevant information contributed by the community and history
of the community.

TASK 1
Getting to know more about our community here today …

Communities of Practice
Communities of practice are groups of people who share
information, insight, experience, and tools about an area of
common interest (Wenger, 1998). The three elements of
Community of Practice include:
Domain of knowledge – creates common ground and a sense
of common knowledge in the community;
Community – Interaction and relationships based on mutual
respect and trust; and
Practice – a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information,
styles, stories etc. the community members share.

Why Go Online?
• Communicate remotely
• Extend communication, networks with like mind groups
• To learn and share
• Provide support structure for mentoring
• Provide records and archives
• Online training or professional development
• Access to expertise and
• Flexibility

Building an Online Community Concept and
Identifying Critical Factors?
What are the critical features that make an online
community successful and effective?
Explore the 3 links below and look for things they do to
effectively create an online community, then complete the
sentence above.
4. http://www.preemie-l.org/
5. http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/reserve/online-ed/
6. http://forum.edna.edu.au/wcit2002/ (to login use KDibben
/ dibben – this will give you admin access)

Critical Factors to the Success of Communities …
Without critical factors, communities tend to flounder or
fail. Here are some critical factors:
1. Focus on topics important to the community.
3. Find a well-respected community member to
coordinate/facilitate the community.
4. Make sure people have time and encourage
participation.
5. Get key thought leaders involved.

Critical Factors to the Success of Communities …
5. Build personal relationships among community
members.
6. Develop an active passionate core group.
7. Create forums for thinking together as well as
systems for sharing information.
8. Make it easy to contribute and access the
community’s knowledge and practices.
9. Create real dialogue about cutting edge issues and
information.

Tools Discussion
Online Web Forums v Email Discussion Lists v Community
Website
What would you use? Why?
Problem: I am thinking of starting a new community group
which is made up of different members across Australia. The
members have varying skills from beginner to advance. What
would you suggest is the best tools to use for this community
group? Why?

Online Community Member Skills
What are the pieces a person needs to put together to empower him or
herself to become a contributing member to an online community?
Skills - certain skills any participant to an online
community will need. These mostly involve the basics of
using Email, some specifics about tapping into
Discussion Lists, and maybe details about how to work
with the community's Web site
Culture - Every group of people that come together and
form a community share certain values and interests.
Logistics – eg. The school has only one email account and it is
shared by many staff
Action – Lurk or take action

Gilly Salmon’s – 5 Step Emoderator Model
http://www.atimod.co
m/e-moderating/

Things to Consider – Moderator/Facilitator
There is no one size fits all situation approach for developing online
communities. Some core principles apply and an online community
developer/facilitator/moderator needs a range of skills and
understanding of the available technologies, their pros and cons, as
well as interpersonal skills.
All users will need to register.

 Need an Ice-breaker – initial postings – insights into the forum community
and the opportunity to have users introduce themselves.
 Different users have different abilities and understanding of the tools – need
support and understanding of time commitments.
 Stipulate a timeframe for the community .. Is it for a month, on-going.
 Use different strategies/methodologies to encourage and stimulate
conversation such as:
Six thinking hats – what do you know, how do you feel, what is wrong with ..,
what are the benefits etc., questioning skills, games, debates, articles and
websites.
 Summarise the main points.

Scenario
Take 5 minutes to think about the scenario you have
been given.
What approach / response would you give if you were
the facilitator/moderator of this community?
Any other comments …

Template for Developing an Online Community
Name of Online Community?
Purpose of the Online Community?
How many participants?
Target audience?
How groups are formed and reformed?
Community structure?
E-lapsed time needed?
E-moderators time?
E-moderator actions?
Participant time needed?
Participant actions?
Creating interaction?
How Evaluated?

Email Games
Since April 1999, Dr Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan and
Marie Jasinski have designed, facilitated and evaluated over
20 reusable email game templates.
They have used these games with over 1,500 practitioners
mostly within the vocational and corporate training sectors in
Australia and the USA but also are very applicable for the
higher education and schooling sector. Email games are
easy to adopt and adapt.
In an email game, a facilitator and a group of participants
address a key issue by sending and receiving email
messages during several rounds of play spread over days or
weeks.

Stages of Running an Online Event
Prior the event:
•Designing the event – focus questions; activities; purpose;
•Contacting potential guests and briefing them on the event and the
context;
•Preparation of guests - providing appropriate orientation and
scaffolding for working in the online environment;
•Development of a support website and customisation of
communication tools if required – includes biographical information,
information about the event, how to participate, background
material, copyright, administration, links to discussion archives; and
•Advertising and promotion through existing network and beyond
as appropriate.

Stages of Running an Online Event
During the event:
•Facilitation including orientation messages, introduction of guests,
regular posting of summaries synthesising threads of discussion and
guiding direction if appropriate, providing support for guests and
audience, archiving and closing the event.
After the event:
•Postproduction tasks – feedback survey, selected summary material
and resources added to website and closure on communication
devices as required.

Risk Management
• set clear purpose and outcomes for the community
• procedures to participate
• time allocation to the online community
• support for the community
• professional development to encourage participation
• promotion
• student involvement – impact this can have/considerations
• evaluation – successful or not – why?
• policy statements – copyright, conduct, netiquette …

Policy/Copyright
Communities need to include policy and copyright
notification of the event so participants know what can and
can not be distributed and how to conduct themselves
within the community. This is also useful if the moderator
needs to take action. For example inappropriate postings.
This Policy below was developed for all EdNA Online
collaborative tools – this was including for the World
Congress on IT 2002 online event.
http://www.edna.edu.au/aboutus/policy/collab_tools.html

Policy/Copyright
Included in the policy:
Overview
EdNA Online Collaborative Tools Standards
Content inclusion
Policies
Protocols for use of EdNA Online Collaborative Tools
Safety on the Internet
Grievances
Data Collection and Usage
Conditions of Use

Some Observations
Most people initially join online communities believing that they
will receive some benefit. For an online community to generate
useful content and an ongoing sense of community the
proactive participation of a critical mass of members is
required.
Many people like to lurk for a while before participating though
there are many exceptions to this.
Some people contribute anonymously by personal response
rather than public response.

Further Observations
Being an effective contributing member of an online
community usually means having a combination of skills,
an understanding of the culture of the community, solving
logistical problems so that regular access is convenient,
and ultimately an attitude of wanting to participate and
contribute.
An effective online community will nurture newcomers
with patience and tolerance and make it comfortable for
all to contribute at their own level. At the same time it is
important for participants to realise that learning occurs
on the edge of our comfort zone.

Conclusion
It is self evident that running online events or managing an online
Communities is a non-trivial task requiring time and expertise. An online
community needs adequate human resourcing whether on a voluntary or
paid basis in order to make use of the opportunities afforded by such
events.
An emerging issue is the increasing number of online opportunities
competing for educators’ time. Developing an effective online community
of interest takes considerable time, energy and resources.
The bottom line is:
Communication and Information: a powerful combination
Thus communication is the heart of online communities.

Online Community Models
• SAPP http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/kasmith/
• World Congress http://forum.edna.edu.au/wcit2002/
• LearnScope Virtual Learning Community (VLC)
http://www.learnscope.anta.gov.au/LearnScope/home.asp
• The University of Melbourne, Education Faculty
http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/reserve/online-ed/

Having a go …
You can access the EdNA Online educause online forum
at:
http://forum.edna.edu.au/event.asp?Id=18410

Online Communities of Interest
Stephen Downes
http://www.downes.ca/
Australian Electronic Mailing Lists for Teachers
http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/profassoc/lists.html
Joining Australian education and training discussion lists or create and manage your own.
http://www.edna.edu.au/messaging/index.html
Higher Education Discussion Lists
http://www.edna.edu.au/go/browse/highered:ozhe:forums#resulttab
Discussion Lists for School Leaders
http://www.edna.edu.au/go/browse/schooled:leadership:elistlead#resulttab
Discussion Lists for Teachers
http://www.edna.edu.au/go/browse/schooled:leadership:eliststchr#resulttab
Adult and Community Education
http://www.edna.edu.au/go/browse/ace:newsnet:aceforum#resulttab
Cultural Mailing Lists
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/lists/
National Library
http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries/resource/lists.html

Thank you
Kate Dibben
Online Communications Officer
kdibben@educationau.edu.au
EdNA Online, education.au limited