Trevor Owens

Discussion on the Web is mediated through layers of software and protocols. As scholars increasingly study communication and learning on the web it is essential to consider how site administrators, programmers, and designers create interfaces and enable functionality. The managers, administrators, and designers of online communities can turn to more than 20 years of technical books for guidance on how to design online communities toward particular objectives. Through analysis of this “how-to” literature, this dissertation explores the discourse of design and configuration that partially structures online communities and later social networks. Tracking the history of notions of community in these books suggests the emergence of a logic of permission and control. Online community defies many conventional notions of community. Participants are increasingly treated as “users”, or even as commodities themselves to be used. Through consideration of the particular tactics of these administrators, this study suggests how researchers should approach the study and analysis of the records of online communities.

For a moment, imagine an active online learning community of writers, artists, and designers, many spending more than eight hours a week composing projects. In this community, young people, primarily between the ages of 18-26, regularly critique, facilitate, and support each other in their composition activities. They are motivated to participate by their shared interest and affinity for their creative work. In the age of Wikipedia, this might not seem particularly novel, but what I am actually describing is an online discussion board, RPGmakerVX.net. Elsewhere, I have presented a general outline of the kinds of individuals involved in this community and the way that the site as a whole functions as an open learning environment (Owens, 2010). In this essay, I present a case study of one participant in this community. His user name is Mr. Moo, and at the time I interviewed him, he was a 19 year old college student from Calgary, Canada. When he created his first role-playing game, Prelude of Identity, he was eighteen. After providing a conceptual context for this case study in work on collective intelligence, I draw out the relationship between the technical system of the discussion boards and the creative process of engaging with peers in the production of a video game. I suggest that the discussion board rules and interaction enable a dialogue around composition that ultimately leaves Mr. Moo with a valuable learning experience while also producing a role-playing game. Thinking about this system from the perspective of collective intelligence enables us to use these kinds of interest-driven, online affinity communities as tools in an open education tool kit for educators in more formal learning environments. Ultimately, discussion boards in gaming communities, both the technical and social systems they represent, could be thought of as instructional tools.

Libraries, archives, and museums have a long history of collaboration with members of the public. There is already considerable interest in extending this relationship, inviting members of the public, often referred to as “the crowd,” to tag and classify, transcribe, organize, and otherwise add value to digital cultural heritage collection content. In this essay I connect current discussions of crowdsourcing with the mission and values of cultural heritage organizations and offer a framework for thinking about distinct components of different kinds of projects that have been lumped together.

ABSTRACT The 2008 commercial video game Spore allowed more than a million players to design their own life forms. Starting from single-celled organisms players played through a caricature of natural history. Press coverage of the game’s release offer two frames for thinking about the implications of the game. Some scientists and educators saw the game as a troubling teacher of intelligent design, while others suggested it might excite public interest in science. This paper explores the extent to which these two ways of thinking about the game are consistent with what players have done with the game in its online community. This analysis suggests that, at least for the players participating in this community, the game has not seduced them into believing in intelligent design. Instead the activities of these players suggest that the game has played a catalytic role in engaging the public with science. These findings indicate that designers of educational games may wish to consider more deeply tensions between prioritizing accuracy of content in educational games over player engagement.

... perspectives on Curie's visit to the United States in the American press Trevor Owens1 ... A year earlier, Marie Mattingly Maloney, conservative editor of one of America's major women's magazines, The Delineator, arranged an interview with Curie at her Paris laboratory. ...

... A search for ''Marie Curie'' in English language juvenile biographies in the WorldCat Index of libraries T. Owens (&) Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA e-mail: trevor.johnowens@gmail.com 123 ...

Online community sites devoted to RPG Maker, inexpensive software for creating role playing video games, have emerged as spaces where young people are developing valuable competencies with digital media. This study examines the largest of these communities. The study uses a mix of qualitative methods including a survey, interviews and analysis of the structure of the site. The study uses discourse analysis and is grounded in work on situated learning. The study suggests that the site and community is scaffolding young people into deeper understanding of digital production and the development of practical skills, like programming, as individuals take on identities associated with different roles in game design. This study reinforces the value of research focused on young peoples social media creation and also suggest there is still much to be learned about technologically simple but socially rich platforms like web forums. As qualitative research it does not generate statistical generalization. This research suggests three implications for the design of online learning environments focused on media production. Designers should 1) start with learner's interests and basic skills will come; 2) support a diverse range of production roles and identities; and that 3) simple technical systems can support sophisticated digital learning communities. While there is much work on learning in online communities little of that work has focused on the importance of different roles in those communities and little has focused on implications of these spaces for designing online learning environments.

For the last 20 years technology forecasters have frequently proclaimed that digital technologies would bring about the end of print books, and every few years they find the need to further qualify or renounce their previous proclamations. While the Internet and computing more broadly has not replaced print books, it has transformed the process of buying and selling books, composing and publishing books, and changed some of the relationships between readers, authors, and publishers. It has also changed the way readers discuss, discover and distribute books. This entry documents the way in which book communities, as social networks, have changed through this process.