research-article

Online Urbanism: Interest-based Subcultures as Drivers of Informal Learning in an Online Community

Authors:

Carlotta Domeniconi,

Seungwon YangAuthors Info & Claims

L@S '16: Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale

Pages 21 - 30

https://doi.org/10.1145/2876034.2876052

Published: 25 April 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Online communities continue to be an important resource for informal learning. Although many facets of online learning communities have been studied, we have limited understanding of how such communities grow over time to productively engage a large number of learners. In this paper we present a study of a large online community called Scratch which was created to help users learn software programming. We analyzed 5 years of data consisting of 1 million users and their 1.9 million projects. Examination of interactional patterns among highly active members of the community uncovered a markedly temporal dimension to participation. As membership of the Scratch online community grew over time, interest-based subcultures started to emerge. This pattern was uncovered even when clustering was based solely on social network of members. This process, which closely resembles urbanism or the growth of physically populated areas, allowed new members to combine their interests with programming.

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Zeybek GErdemir NSayın İ(2023)The Effect of an Online Writing Community on ELT Students’ Academic Writing MotivationNew Directions in Technology for Writing Instruction10.1007/978-3-031-13540-8_18(367-389)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2023
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Index Terms

Online Urbanism: Interest-based Subcultures as Drivers of Informal Learning in an Online Community
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Social content sharing
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image ACM Conferences

L@S '16: Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale

April 2016

446 pages

ISBN:9781450337267

DOI:10.1145/2876034

General Chair:
Jeff Haywood
The University of Edinburgh, UK
,
Program Chairs:
Vincent Aleven
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
,
Judy Kay
University of Sydney, Australia
,
Ido Roll
University of British Columbia, Canada

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

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Published: 25 April 2016

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L@S 2016

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L@S 2016: Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale

April 25 - 26, 2016

Scotland, Edinburgh, UK

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L@S '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 18 of 79 submissions, 23%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 117 of 440 submissions, 27%

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569833
Zeybek GErdemir NSayın İ(2023)The Effect of an Online Writing Community on ELT Students’ Academic Writing MotivationNew Directions in Technology for Writing Instruction10.1007/978-3-031-13540-8_18(367-389)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13540-8_18
Jamieson JYamashita NEpstein DChen Y(2021)Deciding If and How to Use a COVID-19 Contact Tracing App: Influences of Social Factors on Individual Use in JapanProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34798685:CSCW2(1-30)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
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