JCMC, Volume 2, Issue 3: Communication in Information Spaces

[Communication in Information Spaces]

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Volume 2, Number 3: December, 1996

[Special Issue of JCMC]

[Editors]

A Special Issue Edited by Joe Konstan,
Department of Computer Science, University of Minnesota

Full Screen

	Currently the use of the computer is limited by the perception of it as a platform with advanced software tools to solve specific problems such as balancing a budget or computing grade point averages. While this is not a bad use of computers it does not fully employ their potential. By expanding our view of computer as tool to computer as medium that facilitates communication and sharing, we can fundamentally change the way we think and learn. This paper discusses the computer as a communication medium to support learning. Specifically, the paper illustrates the benefits of this reconceptualization in the context of having students author and play interactive simulations games and exchange them over the Internet.
	Social accounts of learning and human knowledge have led to attempts to reorganize schools as learning communities. This paper examines the utility of the World Wide Web for aiding in the construction of school-based and work-based learning communities. An ordered list of interactions is provided to characterize the depth of students' entry into new learning communities. Current offerings on the WWW are then surveyed in terms of these categories. Finally, proposals are advanced for enhancing the architecture of the WWW to facilitate its use for the creation and operation of learning communities.
	The need to model users' dynamic behaviour in CSCW systems arises in many contexts. This study developed a probabilistic model of the usage of an awareness-maintaining mechanism in a collaborative hypertext database system. Longitudinal time series data of user-database interaction were studied. The study found that the recurring patterns in the occurrences of the awareness-seeking event were related to several contextual aspects of the CSCW system studied. The context-behaviour relationship is captured by a Poisson regression model. The analytical method can be applied to the study of situated actions in other CSCW systems.
	The paper describes the implementation of a virtual environment to support the training of engineers in Panels of Experts (POE), a vehicle for gathering customer data. The environment, which is implemented using multi-user domain (MUD) technology, simulates a hotel conference facility, the context in which POEs generally take place. Within the environment, simulated customer data gathering activities support training through practice. The paper describes the environment, discusses some issues of communication and interaction raised by the technology, and relays the experiences of new users within this environment.
	JCMC Brief Report
	This study focuses on online newsgroup gender composition and the seeming relatedness between gender roles and group process functions described as task and maintenance. The sample was drawn from randomly selected set of 27 online discussion groups from both the Internet and from commercial information services (e.g. CompuServe) using the ProjectH dataset. A total of 2692 messages were coded for language content (fact, apology, first person flaming, status, etc.) that has been related to gender role in other research. Each message was also coded with respect to the gender of its author. Results held with the conventional impression that men far outnumber women as participants in online discussion groups. However, results were mixed with respect to the relation of language patterns and group gender composition. Gender composition was related to patterns of computer mediated communication in this context.