WP 6 Virtual Communities
Network of Excellence in Internet Science (EINS)
2nd REVIEW
Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Chris Marsden (SUSSEX)
FP7-ICT-2011.1.6-288021 EINS
Network of
Excellence in
Internet Science
WP6 Vision
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The history of Internet-based communication is also a
history of the rise of virtual communities,
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tied into the geographic penetration of access to the Internet,
creating a symbiosis between online and offline experiences.
Our strong working assumption is that virtual communities
typically arise from, and respond to, offline communities.
WP6 attempts to further develop interdisciplinary research,
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to bridge successfully between disciplines in a manner which
enriches both quantitative and qualitative method,
while explicitly acknowledging the normative dimension of our work.
our further work packages will take this work forward.
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
JRA6 Achievements
 Substantial workshops/seminars (D6.3.1) inc.
• Internal to JRA6: OXF, BXL, Munich
• Within EINS: Co-chair 1st ICIS; JRA4/SEA2 UN IGF & LSE
• With external partners WebSci (JRA3)
• All to be expanded in 2014: Planning for JRA6 workshop
 Mobility increased rapidly in 2013:

Marsden to MIT/Wharton/Harvard; Mantelero (NEXA) to OXF;
Antoniadis (ETH) to CAM; Arnaboldi (IIR) OXF; Prandini
(UNIBO) to OXF; Pezzoni (affiliate Pisa), IIT-CNR to CAM
 Delivered D6.1, systematized heterogeneous
body of interdisciplinary knowledge
• sociology, media/communication, evolutionary
neuroscience, economics, psychology, regulatory
theory. Cataloguing of case studies continues: 12 total
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Example of Co-working in Practice
 IIR mobility visit to OXF Q2 2013
 Publication at top-ranking conference:
 Arnaboldi,
Conti, Passarella, Dunbar
 “Dynamics of Personal Social Relationships in
Online Social Networks: a Study on Twitter”
 ACM Conference on Online Social Networks
(ACM COSN 2013), Boston, MA, 7-8 Oct 2013
• Comp sci, evolutionary neuroscience combination
WP 6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Links with other activities
 Strong EINS cooperation with
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JRA5 (privacy/trust in social networks) & JRA4
(regulation/standards in virtual communities)
Open Call activities corresponding to JRA6
1.
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COMPARE [LSE, ETH]
REVITAL: Real and Virtual Social Interactions: Crossroads and
Reciprocities
Foundations for Collective Awareness Platforms (NKUA)
CONTROPEDIA [Barcelona Media]
Cross-disciplinary Participation in Open Source Communities
FP7 SCAMPI project with JRA6/other EINS partners:
• http://aoc2013.dti.supsi.ch/
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
JRA6 Challenges:
Input to Internet Science Roadmap
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Multistakeholder governance of the Internet is an example of an
area in which qualitative-quantitative virtual community
interaction needs measuring.
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metrics and methods to measure the impact of the multistakeholder
approach in Internet governance
variations on multistakeholderism effect on standard and policy making
This requires substantial collaboration with
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other JRAs, notably JRA1/2/3/4/5,
partners funded through the ‘Open Calls’ in 2013,
other funded parties such as the CAPS programme,
Amongst others…
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Next Steps
 Template for case studies – see next section
 Continue dissemination via papers etc.
 Conference presentations
 Workshop 2014
 Work towards D6.2 in M36
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Progress in draft case studies
1. Civic Women’s Rights Platform (Pavan/NEXA)
2. Take Back the Tech! (Pavan/NEXA)
3. Online party politics - Pirate Party (Ciurcine/NEXA)
4. Local Twitter interaction with local administration/political use (NEXA)
5. Trusting ‘Bouwinfo forum’ (Talboom/iMinds)
6. Properties of users social networks (Passarella/IIT)
7. Foursquare Communities (McMillan, MLS)
8. Hybrid On/Offline Communities NetHood (Panayotis/ETH)
9. Community: ‘Real’ and ‘Virtual’ in a Rural Village (Rouncefield/LANC)
10. Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis (David-Barrett/OXF)
11. Reg. for Large-Scale Virtual Communities (Marsden/SUSS)
12. Virtual communities of vehicular nodes (Karaliopoulos/NKUA)
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
JRA6 Workshop 2014
Option (subject to approval by Exec Board):
 26th HBES
 Human
Behaviour and Evolution of Society:
 Natal, July 30-Aug 2
http://www.hbes.com/conference/
 Robin Dunbar has agreed to keynote
 Highly interdisciplinary – excellent opportunity
 Organisers have agreed in principle to include
conference on programme
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Conclusions
 Year 2 increase in progress compared to Year 1
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Very substantial contribution to other WP activities
(JRA3/4/5/SEA2) – JRA6 workshop in Year 3
 All partners engaged online and offline
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Mobility visits, OXF, BXL and Munich meetings
Publications inc. substantial D6.1 and many co-authored
publications between JRA6 partners (and others)
TCLR Resource reallocated to NEXA to increase
junior/female researcher input
12 case studies + 5 Open Call projects to analyze
contribution to D6.2 (M36)
WP6
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Back Up Slides
WPx...
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Foundations for Collective Awareness Platforms (NKUA)
 Systematically explore different dimensions
• market, social- and cognitive dimensions
• implications for design user participation
 Characterization/classification of CAPs,
• end user participation incentives, sometimes
monetary and more often non-monetary,
• value of private information shared in platform
• vulnerability to free riders
 Novel modelling ideas/design experiments
 quantitatively
capture CAPs attributes.
 Contributes to JRA1/6, interacts with JRA5/7
2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
COMPARE [LSE, ETH]
 COMPARE network research & practitioners
 self-organization
of sociotechnical and
economic systems in online/offline contexts.
 1) Learn about building the future Internet from
real-life experiences of self-organization?
 2) ICTs facilitate self-organization consistently
with local values and agreed upon objectives?
 Complementary currency (SARDEX)
 Cooperative housing/eco-village (INURA)
• Internal rules and structure, scale, ICT, effect of
current economic crisis on proliferation.
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2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
REVITAL : Real and Virtual Social Interactions:
Crossroads and Reciprocities
 Research on cross-discipline methodologies
 analysing
emotional information extracted from
people's virtual and real social life.
 Methodology: monitor/analyse activity
patterns
 affective
real/virtual social interactions
 Prototype for innovative services built on the
basis of project’s conclusions and results.
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Informatics
• University of Crete, Psychology Department
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2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
Cross-disciplinary Participation in Open Source Communities LSE
 Open Source (OS) development communities
behave differently
• practices, goals, capacity utilisation, innovative outputs
 Understanding the foundations of
 cross-disciplinary
collaboration/knowledge
production; sustainable open code development.
 Research methodology:
 large
open data repositories and the microhistories of OS communities: social dynamics of
members’ interactions over time.
 visualization with qualitative research
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2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014
EDEKO Environmental Drivers-DetailsEnforcement-Key Actors-Outcomes
1. Environmental Drivers:
 Policy
environment, social impact of adoption
Design of that community’s solutions:
2.
Affordances, norms, code, other
3. Enforcement of community standards
 by authors, users and developers,
 role of governments in attempting to regulate
communities in the public interest.
2.
3.
Key actors: stakeholders
 particularly
explore role of bottom-up community
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2nd EINS Review, Brussels, 4-5 February 2014