Virtual communities are a new frontier in the digital landscape. While these spaces are only in their infancy, it will not be long before they become a part of much of the population’s daily life. Before that becomes the case, it is important that we instill guidelines and parameters to ensure that those interacting with these digital spaces feel safe within them and are able to use them to their fullest capacity. Building Power, Safety, and Trust in Virtual Communities examines how online groups help people learn and change the way they think. In this book, different people with different academic backgrounds, methods, and personal experience with virtual groups look at this question. Case studies are included to help exemplify these findings. Together, these chapters discuss how virtual communities are built in ways that thinkers, researchers, and practitioners can understand.

Virtual communities are a new frontier in the digital landscape. While these spaces are only in their infancy, it will not be long before they become a part of much of the population's daily life. Before that becomes the case, it is important that we instill guidelines and parameters to ensure that those interacting with these digital spaces feel safe within them and are able to use them to their fullest capacity. Building Power, Safety, and Trust in Virtual Communities examines how online groups help people learn and change the way they think. In this book, different people with different academic backgrounds, methods, and personal experience with virtual groups look at this question. Case studies are included to help exemplify these findings. Together, these chapters discuss how virtual communities are built in ways that thinkers, researchers, and practitioners can understand.

"This encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies provides a much needed integrated overview of all the critical concepts, technologies and issues in the area of virtual communities"--Provided by publisher.

Provides an analysis of virtual communities, explaining their lifecycle in terms of maturity-based models and workflows.

Most Americans agree on the necessity of education reform, but there is little consensus about how this goal might be achieved. The rhetoric of standards and vouchers has occupied center stage, polarizing public opinion and affording little room for reflection on the intangible conditions that make for good schools. Trust in Schools engages this debate with a compelling examination of the importance of social relationships in the successful implementation of school reform. Over the course of three years, Bryk and Schneider, together with a diverse team of other researchers and school practitioners, studied reform in twelve Chicago elementary schools. Each school was undergoing extensive reorganization in response to the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which called for greater involvement of parents and local community leaders in their neighborhood schools. Drawing on years longitudinal survey and achievement data, as well as in-depth interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and local community leaders, the authors develop a thorough account of how effective social relationships—which they term relational trust—can serve as a prime resource for school improvement. Using case studies of the network of relationships that make up the school community, Bryk and Schneider examine how the myriad social exchanges that make up daily life in a school community generate, or fail to generate, a successful educational environment. The personal dynamics among teachers, students, and their parents, for example, influence whether students regularly attend school and sustain their efforts in the difficult task of learning. In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores. Trust in Schools demonstrates convincingly that the quality of social relationships operating in and around schools is central to their functioning, and strongly predicts positive student outcomes. This book offer insights into how trust can be built and sustained in school communities, and identifies some features of public school systems that can impede such development. Bryk and Schneider show how a broad base of trust across a school community can provide a critical resource as education professional and parents embark on major school reforms. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology

Successful brand building helps sustain relationships with consumers, creating long-term sustainable competitive advantage and protecting businesses from market turbulence and uncertainties. Manufacturing processes can often be duplicated in ways that strongly held attitudes established in consumers’ minds cannot. Branding and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Building Virtual Presence explores the processes involved in managing brands for long-term sustainable competitive advantage. Managers, professionals, and researchers will better understand the importance of consumers’ perceptions in brand management, gain insight into the interface of positioning and branding, learn about the management of brands over time and in digital and virtual worlds, be able to name new products and brand extensions, and discover how marketers develop and apply strategies to position their brands.

How insights from the social sciences, including social psychology and economics, can improve the design of online communities. Online communities are among the most popular destinations on the Internet, but not all online communities are equally successful. For every flourishing Facebook, there is a moribund Friendster—not to mention the scores of smaller social networking sites that never attracted enough members to be viable. This book offers lessons from theory and empirical research in the social sciences that can help improve the design of online communities. The authors draw on the literature in psychology, economics, and other social sciences, as well as their own research, translating general findings into useful design claims. They explain, for example, how to encourage information contributions based on the theory of public goods, and how to build members' commitment based on theories of interpersonal bond formation. For each design claim, they offer supporting evidence from theory, experiments, or observational studies.