Virtual Community Informatics: A Review and Research Agenda

ABSTRACT Divergent opinions exist on the basic understanding of the concept, virtual community. This study offers a working definition by examining different definitions, and proposes adoption of virtual community classifications. It also includes a summary of research conducted in the field. The research categorizes the different stages in virtual community growth to show the transition of research in this area. The results illustrate a paucity of technology development studies. We also investigate the extent of the adoption of informatics in these communities using a survey 200 virtual communities. The results indicate that discussion forum is the most popular tool adopted in virtual communities. The integration of the research review and tool adoption survey contributes to the generation of an agenda to direct future virtual community research. INTRODUCTION With the exponential growth of the virtual community, more and more studies have been conducted on how virtual communities affect living standards by providing functions for relationship building and knowledge sharing (Baranski 1997; Bieber et al. 2002; Blase 2000; Brown 2000; Siwolop 1997). Nevertheless, little consensus has been reached on basic concepts such as definitions and classifications of the virtual community. Without such underlying concepts, researchers use a variety of meanings for the same terms. The various classifications proposed by different researchers prevent the adoption of a standard terminology. Also, the existing literature shows that virtual community research is lacking and is being ignored in the most prestigious journals. This implies that virtual community research has not yet reached a mature stage and opens opportunities for future study. From a practical point of view, a virtual community provides access for engaging in common activities, sharing feelings, or discussing ideas with others. The current practice is to build web sites and allow people to register as members who can then share information or feelings virtually. However, the tools that virtual community web sites are using to assist in relationship building and knowledge sharing are of dubious value. As the virtual community becomes more popular, researchers need to be aware of what is happening in the theoretical aspects as well as practical developments and consideration of research opportunities that exist. We develop four research questions based on the problems mentioned above: 1. What is our proposed working definition of the virtual community? 2. What are the classifications of virtual community and how can they be adopted in different situations? 3. What are the tools currently adopted in virtual communities and expectations for their functionalities? 4. What suggestions can we make about future research about virtual communities? In this paper, we compare different virtual community definitions and develop a working definition. We then describe different classifications of virtual community and suggest selective adoption based on different situations. We identify existing research on virtual community, and demonstrate the lack of technology development studies. Next, we examine virtual community from a practical point of view to reflect on what is actually happening in this area. On the practical side, we conduct a survey on internet tools used in 200 virtual community web sites, and provide suggestions for how these tools can provide support. The results of the survey indicate that discussion forum is the most popular virtual community tool. Finally, integration of research summary and survey findings contributes to a research agenda for directing future virtual community research with the technology development focus. This is a review and a research agenda paper about the virtual community. We first propose a working definition of virtual community and suggest circumstances where different virtual community classifications could be applied. …