cyber communities of learning

8/8/2019 Cyber Communities of Learning

1/70

Cyber Communities of Learning

An examination of the processes through which members of an open-

source e-Learning community learn and exchange knowledge.

Andrs-Pablo Vaquero Ibez

BA (Hons) Media and Communication

August 2010


2/70


3/70

Cyber Communities of Learning

An examination of the processes through which members of an open-

source e-Learning community learn and exchange knowledge.

Andrs-Pablo Vaquero Ibez

BA (Hons) Media and Communication

August 2010

Word Count: 11,450


4/70

Abstract_________________________________________________________________________

This research makes an in-depth examination of a thriving open-source e-Learning

community. The study primarily focuses on the ways in which this community is used for

e-Learning and knowledge exchange. It is theoretically based upon other works on the

subjects of the Internet, online communities and e-Learning, and uses virtual

ethnography to throw light into its main issue of concern.

It was found that the modes of learning employed in this community strongly resonate

with the communal constructivist theory of learning. Furthermore the research suggests

that altruism, community, open-source, and personal and communal reputation all

interplay an important role in the thriving and success of such a community. The

research shows how the sustaining and maintenance of the community happens

spontaneously through a global commitment that is based upon the value that is put into

the possibilities and benefits that the technology and the specific environment grant.

Finally it draws attention to the effectiveness and potential of new open-source systems

of online knowledge exchange, and encourages the focus of further academic research

in this area in order to improve, promote, and expand their uses.


5/70

Dedication_________________________________________________________________________

To my family, my future wife, and my friends, and to all those who have had to put up

with me at times.

A special dedication to my father, who no longer will be able to read this work, but who

has given me the greatest of infancies and a no-less greater life.

Finally to all of those who will read this work.


6/70


7/70

Contents_________________________________________________________________________

Introduction........................................1

Chapter One: Literature Review.............................................3-12

The Internet......................................................................3

Online Communities.................................................6

E-Learning.......................................................................8

Chapter Two: Methodology......................12-17

Definition...............................................................................12

Justification.............................................................14

Classic Study...............................................15

Ethics.............................................................................15

Proceedings.......................................................................16

Chapter Three: Kirupa.com..........................................................................................18-36

Description and Background Information.....................................18

An Online Community?....................................23

Why do They Contribute?.....................27

Collective Order Maintenance.........................30

In Which Ways do They Learn?...................31

Self-Reflection......................................35

Chapter Four: Conclusion........................37-38

Bibliography.........................39-43

Appendices.......................44-62

Appendix I: Kirupa Chinnathambi on Post Figures.....................................................45

Appendix II: Forum Thread: Website Critique.............................................................46

Appendix III: E-mail Interview to Trevor McCauley......................................................50


8/70

Appendix IV: Kirupa Chinnathambi on Kirupa.coms Moderators................................51

Appendix V: An Online Tutorial by Senocular..............................................................52

Appendix VI: Forum Poll-Question - What IDE Are You Using for Flash Action- Script

and why?....................................................................................................................54

Appendix VII: Forum Help - An Example of an Incorrect Approach to Asking for

Help............................................................................................................................59

Appendix VIII: Forum Help - An Example of a Successful Approach to Asking for

Help............................................................................................................................60

Appendix IX: Kirupian on Forum Behaviour...............................................................62


9/70

Introduction_________________________________________________________________________

This study explores the ways in which users of an open-source e-Learning community

learn and exchange knowledge. It uses virtual ethnography to make an examination of

Kirupa.com, a thriving online community where thousands of people share knowledge

on the subject of web design & development. It explores the ways in which their users

are empowered to learn, and it also throws light into correlated issues such as the

concept of community, motivation for contribution, and the sustainment and

maintenance of the community.

The Internet, despite having undergone rapid and extensive development so far, is a

technology in its very early stages. Online e-Learning communities are novel

environments that provide interesting new opportunities. It is important for scholars to

study them carefully so as to understand their potential benefits for education and even

for society at large, as well as to find ways in which they can be developed further.

At a personal level the reasons that have motivated the research relate to the benefits I

have obtained through open-source e-Learning environments. After getting used to the

fact that I could freely use them I became conscious of their novelty, and I started

asking myself numerous questions regarding the effectiveness of an otherwise solitary

self-taught experience into the complex area of web development. This is where I

realised the importance of this subject and that further research on this new area can

never be enough right at where we stand.

The study will firstly draw on academic works related to the three main frameworks of

academic knowledge that encompass it. Subsequently it will examine the methodology

applied exploring its definition, its main features, its advantages and disadvantages, its

justification, and the ethical issues involved in the research. It will proceed with the

1


10/70

application of the methodology to the analysis of the website, where a detailed

description will be made and further aspects related to the main issue of research will

be studied. Finally the study will be summarised concluded, suggesting further areas of

research.

2


11/70

Chapter One: Literature Review_________________________________________________________________________

This study encompasses three different frameworks of academic knowledge: the

Internet, online communities, and e-Learning. They will be explored below through the

mentioned order, although as you will notice at times the topics overlap. Let us get

started...

The Internet

As Bernadette Hlubik Schell shows us (2007, 1-52) an Internet is a network connecting

computer systems; what begun at first as an experimental military defence system for

the U.S. Department of Defence in the late 1960s called the ARPAnet (a computer

network for the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency) swiftly has come to be a

system by which part of the world population is able to perform, through their personal

computers at their own homes, a variety of tasks that range from instant messaging and

telephony, to e-commerce, internet banking, online gambling, political activism and

online voting (Schell 2007, 51). Even Schells definition above is quite lacking, as there

is a whole array of other things that are happening right now on the web. Therein are

online e-Learning communities such as Kirupa.com and innumerable others, where

many thousands of people exchange knowledge.

The Internet is still in its commence and therefore it is very likely to see important

changes in forthcoming years (Schell 2007, 138). It is good to notice as well that we are

rarely able to predict the future of technology. As David Winer perfectly puts it : Thats

what makes each of these revolutions so exciting its because all the prognostications

are always wrong (David Winer, cited in Richards, 2002, 195). Wilson and Peterson

(2002, 462) show that the revolutionary impact that was believed the Internet would

3


12/70

make in terms of power relationships and the rapid transformation of society has not

been realised hitherto (perhaps we need more time), on the other hand in terms of the

social uses that have been put into it the impact has been astounding and almost

completely unprecedented.

Meanwhile all kinds of theories are emerging. There is a strand of thought with people

like Howard Bloom (2000), Peter Russel (1983), or Mayer-Kress and Barczys (1995,

1-17), who see the Internet as having the potential to become the nervous system of a

global brain. In Wolfgang Hofkirchners words (2007) this strand supports the idea that:

after the inventions of speech, writing and the printing press the diffusion of modernICTs is setting the stage for extending human collective intelligence into novel socio-technical forms that might regain the interconnectedness of bacteria, if not transcendboth the intelligence of humans and machines of today by a greater degree thanhuman information processing systems transcended pre-human ones.

493

After all we know very little of what is possible and almost nothing of what is awaiting. If

we could travel to the past, not so long ago, with any modern technological artefact we

would surely have an amusing time observing fellow-human reactions, yet new

generations are already used to these modern technologies.

Many regard the Internet as having triggered a revolution on its own right and claim that,

if used properly, it holds big potential to help in solving many of the most urging

problems that threaten humankind and society, or of what Carl Sagan called

technological adolescence (1995, 328-332). Humankind evolutes exponentially and in

the same way grow the problems that it faces. Hofkirchner (2007, 492-497) believes

that the Internet can be used to raise global consciousness and properly address many

of these problems. Online communities, according to him, would play the main role in

this task. He talks about two different kinds of communities whose boundaries are

sometimes blurred. In one, individuals just communicate with each other, in the other

one, individuals also share certain values that make them co-operate, that is,

4


13/70

collaborate and act together in real life situations (Hofkirchner 2007, 496). The first type

is the community of interest, primarily designed for learning (Wikipedia, e-Learning

2.0) or networking (MySpace, Facebook etc) purposes. The second type is the

community of action, which according to Hofkirchner is what is needed to work out

collective intelligence and accomplish that leap in quality that is required to move

societal development onto a sustainable path (Hofkirchner 2007, 496). ##

Anyhow we need to realise that we are still far from achieving the full potential of the

Internet. Adefemi Sonaike (2004, 41-61), for instance, illustrates us with an array of

different complex problems that need to be addressed before the Internet can even

come close to be accessible for the whole of Africa. In regards to the digital divide we

need to be aware of the fact that there is still much road to be paved before the Internet

can reach the world population. We should not assume thoughtlessly that this is going

to happen any time soon or perhaps even ever, as in order to provide Internet

accessibility for the whole world we would firstly need to address some of the most

basic problems of humankind such as war, starvation or poverty. David Gunkel (2003,

499-522) provides us with a critical perspective on the digital divide urging that access

to technology should not be assumed to be automatic or universally applicable (500).

According to the statistics at WorldBank.com (The World Bank 2010, [online]) Internet

usage reached 23.9 per cent of the world population by 2009. The growth in Internet

usage has been fast and as new generations come it is expected to increase. What will

surely be more challenging is to address the issues concerned with providing physical

access to the technology for a large part of the world population.

Towards a definition of the Internet that is more concerned with its communicative and

social aspect, Dennis D. Waskul (2007) explain that the Internet is a place where self

5


14/70

and society must be made to exist in a process where both are translated into the

conventions of the medium (47). Waskul (2007, 47-63) identifies two states of the self

towards society. One is the static state in which there is no difference between reality

and representation. In this case we would believe we are what we portray ourselves to

be. The other one is the ecstatic state, which Waskul describes as the state of being

outside of ones self and society, where distinctions of representation and reality are

not only recognised, but also actively manipulated (2007, 60). It is this latter state that

Waskul attributes to the Internet and the ways in which we use it. He urges us not to fall

in the same trap as other scholars have done in the past by considering these

manipulated representations naturally problematic. Waskul recognises them as a vital

part of human social life through which we step away from social structures and the self

in order to return to them revitalised. He tries to save us from prejudice related to

ecstatic reconstitutions of the self and considers the Internet as a good opportunity to

broaden our understanding of the nature of these, which according to him are a very

important part of social life that we should not disparage or consider deviant to society.

Online Communities

Exploring into the subject of online communities we find that, as means to approach

Internet studies from a more impartial position and escape vagueness and

preconceptions in scholarly work, academics have recently given much significance into

the issue of accurately defining the term community. Paul Baker and Andrew Ward

(2002) explain that the development of digital information and ICTs have had a number

of important consequences, including a reconceptualization of what it means to be a

community (207). Moreover as Gordon Graham puts it: Community has become a

vogue word on almost every lip, a word now used or abused, to the point of

meaninglessness (1999, 131). Jan Fernback (2007, 49-69) urges how academic

6


15/70

knowledge would benefit much in carefully reconsidering the meaning of the word

community when studying online environments, and that if scholars continue to

thoughtlessly embed the word in Internet studies they will weaken the potential of the

research to understand how online communities are constituted, how they operate,

how they are integrated into offline social life, or what they provide (2007, 66).

Furthermore Andrew M. Cox (2008, 327-345) shows there is an ongoing debate over

the terms meaning, pointing out how the word is commonly used in a feeble way to

refer to the internet tools that enable users to generate content in a website such as

bulletin boards (2008, 330). In order to avoid futile interpretations Susan Herring (2004

cited in Cox, 2008) provides six criterions that contribute to a stronger definition of the

term community:

1. Active, self-sustaining participation; a core of regular participants.2. Shared history, purpose, culture, norms and values.3. Solidarity, support, reciprocity.4. Criticism, conflict, means of conflict resolution.5. Self-awareness of group as an entity distinct from other groups.

6. Emergence of roles, hierarchy, governance, rituals. 330

This studys main intention is not to address whether Kirupa.com can be considered an

online community or not but rather to explore how it is used. Anyhow applying Herrings

criterions to Kirupa.com will strengthen and solidify the foundations of the research as

well as shed direct light to it.

There are several other interesting studies of online communities. Some of them focus

in open-source communities. For instance Andrea Hemetsberger and Christian

Reinhardt (2006, 187-214) study the processes by which people construct knowledge in

open-source online communities, providing some interesting conclusions:

members of innovative online communities learn and build collective knowledge

through the use oftechnologies

and the establishment of discursive practices that

enable virtual re-experience.187

7


16/70

Additionally Mohanbir Sawnhey and Emanuela Prandelli (2000, 24-54) propose a new

business model that tries to benefit from the advantages of the open-source model,

which is sustained through what they call communities of creation.

Other online-community studies focus in firm-hosted communities. For Example Sonja

Utz (2009, 357-374) examines the motivational factors that induce to knowledge

contribution in online consumer communities, determining whether their nature is

altruistic or egoistic. Research on the same topic as Utzs will be useful for this research

in order to determine what are the differences, if any, between motivation for knowledge

contribution in firm-hosted and in open-source communities and the why of these

differences.

E-Learning

There are many types of online communities on the Internet; one of them is the e-

Learning community, to which Kirupa.com belongs. Let us explore then the subject of e-

Learning.

According to Bryn Holmes and John Gardners simplistic definition e-Learning is:

online access to learning resources, anywhere and anytime (2006, 14). As they put it

e-Learning enables learners to have as much choice as is practically and economically

possible (Holmes and Gardner 2006, 14). They explain that society is undergoing

changes at such speed that the educational system is being left behind in the respect

that teachers and students increasingly have new things to learn and do but a lack of

new ways of learning and doing them (Holmes and Gardner 2006, 17). Governments in

Europe and the U.S.A. are investing large amounts of funds into e-Learning with the

hope that it will provide a solution to the problems that education is currently facing and

make learning environments more efficient; The European Union has invested large

sums of money and resources into the research of the potential and current role of e-

8


17/70

Learning and digital-content delivery (Holmes and Gardner 2006, 18). In short it seems

that the hope and the current bet for improving education is on e-Learning. Holmes and

Gardner briefly summarise in five bullet-points the ways in which e-Learning can

improve the quality of education:

Contributing to an evolution in the way the students learn; enriching and extendingthe learning experience of students; providing powerful tools for learners to exploitthe World Wide Web; contributing to the evolution of theories of learning; opening uplearning to students who might otherwise be restricted;

2006, 31

Moreover they illustrate us with the different learning theories developed during the last

hundred years to finally arrive to explain the most contemporary one: communal

constructivism (Holmes and Gardner 2006, 76-89). This is a learning theory that arises

from the learning opportunities that technology is granting to society and it is the most

modern so far. It evolves from the socio-constructivist theory, which can be shortly

summarised with the following words: ones contribution to the learning of the

collective is likely to benefit the individual as well (Salomon and Perkins, cited in

Holmes and Gardner, 2006, 85).

In the communal constructivist theory:

e-Learning provides the learners with the tools to create new learning for themselvesand to contribute and store their new knowledge, in whatever form it is, projects,artefacts, essays and so on, in a communal knowledge base for the benefit of theircommunities existing and new learners.

Holmes and Gardner 2006, 85

As Holmes et al. (2001, [online]) explain: Communal constructivism is about

empowering the learners to allow them to reclaim a role in their own education (6). This

model for learning provides many improvements over traditional and static ways of

learning. In it teachers become learners and learners become teachers; the learning

process becomes active instead of passive, and learners are granted the power to

become part of an active community of members and be in charge of their own learning

9


18/70

(Holmes and Gardner 2006, 87). Everyone can contribute permanently to everyones

learning and the whole process becomes dynamic, self-generating and builds always on

new knowledge instead of being repetitive (Holmes and Gardner 2006, 86). Its main

reason of being is to learn for other people and with other people. This kind of learning

can take place in formal communities with a tutor-teacher system or in an informal

community as, for instance, Kirupa.com. As Holmes and Gardner put it: In such a

scenario the motivation of the learners to learn is increased and the learning process is

made more meaningful (158).

The communal-constructivism theory lies at the very core of this research because as

we will see it has many similarities with the ways in which members of Kirupa.com

learn.

As Leask and Younie (2001, 117-134), and Scrimshaw (2001, 135-141) show there is

current concern into the viability and effectiveness of applying communal constructivism

through ICT into the educational and pedagogic system, a matter which is not as simple

as it may seem at first. On the whole, as Tavangarian et al. (2004) explain :

despite the fact that e-Learning exists for a relatively long time it is still in itsinfancy. The focus on technical gadgets and promising business models haveinfluenced the development into the wrong direction, at least as perceived from aconstructivist point of view.

278

Vivienne Bozalek and Lear Matthews (2009, 235-246) have made further research into

cross-cultural e-Learning showing much promise for this learning method in their

conclusions. Their findings state that through the e-Learning environment an

unexpected level of intimacy between users from different cultures was reached,

allowing them to work more effectively despite any identity issues that may have arisen

from differences in culture, gender, ethnicity or class.

10


19/70

Martin Weller in his book Delivering learning on the Net (2002, 19-35) explores some

of the myths that surround online learning and its position in education such as that the

internet will mean the commercialisation and globalisation of education, the death of

campus university, the declining of standards in education, and that it is good for

training but not for education. On the whole he arrives to the conclusion that right now

we live in both the best and worst of times for education. He believes that in the next

twenty years we will see more change in the education system than since the

universities removed knowledge from the power of the church (Weller 2002, 33). During

this change that we are facing, he argues, we run the risk of weakening many of the

most important values integrated in the education system. Although he dispels many of

the negative myths against e-Learning he urges educators to actively take part in

shaping the decisions that are going to be made in the near future towards the

education system, because if these choices are not shaped by them they will be taken

anyway by people other than educators and this can result in a declining of the overall

standards (Weller 2002, 34).

I have gone above through the definitions, main issues of research and arguments that

academics have previously made in the fields of what constitute the main frameworks of

knowledge in which this research study falls. In as much as possible I have explored the

broad and the concrete issues related to this research.

It seems a common agreement that change in society is coming faster and faster due to

the advent of new technologies such as the internet, a vast universe in itself, very

complicated to fully understand but hugely interesting at the same time. It is an exciting

as well as a delicate time that runs faster than we have time to assimilate. Research

must be in the vanguard of what is happening right now, especially in the convoluted

and critical times we live in. This research tries to address an issue of current concern

and hopefully add relevant findings and a new perspective to scholarly knowledge.11


20/70

Chapter Two: Methodology_________________________________________________________________________

Kirupa.com is an online environment where thousands of users are active producers

and consumers of online content related to web design & development. Virtual

ethnography offers the best approach available to shed light into the question of this

research. I will address further the main issues concerning this type of methodology

and why it is relevant to the research.

Definition

Virtual ethnography emerges from an older methodology that goes by the name of

ethnography. Ethnography had to be readapted to a new setting seen by the recent

advent of the Internet. This new setting is the online environment. In order to

understand what virtual ethnography is we should take a look first at its definition and its

basic concepts. Ethnography,

In its most characteristic form it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly orcovertly in peoples daily lives for an extended period of time, watching whathappens, listening to what is said, asking questions in fact, collecting whatever dataare available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research.

Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995 cited in Hine 2000, 41

As Christine Hine explains (2000, 41), ethnography is a qualitative methodology that

has no specific formula for verifying the accuracy of the results obtained. Because of

this issue it has been criticised against quantitative methodologies that have more

rigorous ways and techniques for conducting research and verifying results. However it

is realistically fairer to see ethnography just as a different approach that will bring both

strengths and weaknesses to the research. In ethnographic research, researchers are

not so constrained in the way in which they want to conduct their research and arrive to

12


21/70

conclusions. This promises a better way to address the complexity of culture. As Hine

(2000) puts it :

It offers the promise of getting closer to understanding the ways in which peopleinterpret the world and organise their lives. By contrast, quantitative studies are

deemed thin representations of isolated concepts imposed on the study by theresearcher.

42

Ethnography requires the ethnographer not only to observe but as well to be a

participant of the culture under study. This brings a risk to the equation, which is that of

losing a sceptical approach to the study and to what the people under study take for

granted (Hine 2000, 54). It is important that the ethnographers are able to immerse

themselves into the culture but it is of the same vital importance that they are able to

detach themselves from it, in order to arrive to unbiased conclusions. Hine (2000,

55-56) explains three different approaches to addressing the aforementioned risk. The

first would focus in how people perceive and define their cultural space. With this

approach the ethnographers are denied privilege in the account and their views would

be blurred with those of the people in the cultural setting being studied. The second

approach focuses on the ethnographers, in which there is a self-reflection on the

perspective, background and standpoint that led them to shape the study in the way

they did. There is a risk with this last approach for the researchers to end up telling

more about them than about the culture being studied. The last approach is to make

clear to readers that accounts are constructed and contingent in their very nature.

Virtual ethnography is the same as ethnography in its core, however there is a vital

difference, which is the nature of the very setting. While ethnography studies culture in a

physical setting and in the physical presence of people, virtual ethnography deals with a

non-physical environment, which is set in the Internet and in which we are not able to

see its participants. This in itself poses quite an important difference from its mother

13


22/70

methodology, and raises quite a few issues for consideration. As Hine (2000) says

There is no guarantee that the identity performances seen in cyberspace will mirror

those performed in offline settings (118). In an online environment we could not

interpret what people say along with their body language for instance. As well people

can construct false identities without this being noticed. Therefore we need to be careful

with authenticity by being aware of the fact that the data collected could in many

instances be unreliable. Interestingly, for the same reasons that there are

disadvantages there are quite often discernible advantages. Not dealing with people in

a face-to-face fashion can save us from prejudicing in terms of gender, age, race, etc

allowing us to make more objective conclusions.

Justification

Virtual ethnography has been devised for the study of online settings where people are

able to consume and produce texts and culture. As we have seen the basic definition of

ethnography draws upon observing and collecting any data available that could shed

light into the purpose of the research. This research will be gathering data from a

website and an online community that has a wealth of learning resources, features and

innumerable forum threads that its own users have produced. We already know it is

also important for the ethnographer to participate inside the culture being studied.

Asking relevant questions to the site members will be very useful in addressing the

question of this research. The freedom of research approach that ethnography offers is

very suitable for addressing the complexity of researching such a site; therefore there is

no better methodology to address the issue of how Kirupa.com is used by its members.

14


23/70

Classic Study

Marleen Huysman and Yuwei Lin (2005, 56-69) conduct a virtual ethnography on their

study Learn to Solve Problems: A Virtual Ethnographic Case Study of Learning in a

GNU/Linux User Group. They explore different interesting issues regarding knowledge

exchange and the processes of mutual help and mutual learning in an online

environment where people are actively engaged in learning on the open-source Linux

computer platform. The researchers closely followed online conversations. As they put

it: even in virtual ethnography, there is no substitute for being there, even if there

simply means sitting at your computer looking at the website on a regular

basis (Huysman and Yuwei 2005, 60).

In order to make their research manageable they have selected only two examples of

mutual learning for analysis, however with substantial amounts of data and with plenty

of participation from different members. They carefully go through every stage of the

thread analysing the different ongoing processes. They point out that the drawback of

ethnographic research is that reporting about the gathered data can be a long-lasting

labor and thus they have selected only a small sample to study (Huysman and Yuwei

2005, 67).

Ethics

In regards to ethics concerning the ethnographic approach there are several vital issues

that need to be considered and appropriately addressed. Asking permission to carry out

the study and informing the people that they are under research and under acceptable

conditions to them seems to be a sensible approach to the matter. Hine states that to

participate in a newsgroup without revealing ones role as a researcher would, in all

cases of covert ethnography, pose a considerable ethical problem (2000, 23). She

points out that there is controversy when considering if the messages that people post

15


24/70

online can be regarded as public statements or as the property of their authors not to

be appropriated for academic purposes without permission (Hine 2000, 24).

Furthermore disclosing the names of the authors of online posts in the research can

bring further ethical implications, as they could consider this unacceptable (Hine 2000,

24). Not revealing their names is therefore a sensible approach, however in certain

situations this is not enough. Thanks to search engines the content of online posts can

be traced back to their authors and reveal their identity. This brings a new problem and

a dilemma; as Hine puts into words Refraining form making verbatim quotations would

pose a considerable challenge to the reporting conventions of discourse-based

research (Hine 2000, 24).

Ultimately, as Hine explains, there are no definite rules to applying an ethical approach

to the study, but rather ethnographers need to have present the ethical implications of

their actions from the start and act accordingly (2000, 24). In this respect it is always

helpful to draw on other literature to see what other people have to say. Flicker et al.

(2004, 132), for instance, provide a list of twelve different points for ethical consideration

when researching in online communities; these are no easy matters and present the

researcher with further limitations.

Proceedings

Before starting research I have considered correct to contact the author of the website

under study, Kirupa Chinnathambi, to ask for permission to carry out ethnographic

research in his website. After this was granted I have thoroughly explored the website

and collected useful and relevant information and observed several forum threads as

they unfolded. All participants of each of the forum threads selected for this research

were clearly informed about the intentions of the study, and were provided contact

details for any questions they might have had or to opt-out from having their posts

16


25/70

published. In order to avoid intrusion I have created a thread of its own where I give

detailed information about the research.

- http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=352411 -

Then on every thread I have selected to study I have posted a link to this thread, briefly

indicating the situation. Every member is notified by email if a new message is posted to

the thread. This way I could partly ensure that my post was going to be viewed by

everyone involved. I also selected threads that were unfolding or recent, so as to further

ensure that everyone was notified.

The most relevant forum posts and threads were selected and carefully analysed in

order to gather useful information that could shed light into the study. I also privately

contacted Trevor McCauley, who is one of the most active members at Kirupa.com, to

ask him for permission to mention him in this work, and also I interrogated him with a

brief questionnaire.

I used the second approach to ethnographic reflexivity that Christine Hine mentions

(2000, 56) by self-reflecting on the perspective, background and standpoint that have

led me to carry out this research. The reason I have chosen this approach to reflexivity

from the three available ones is because having been quite an active user of the fora at

Kirupa.com for the last two years I found important to carefully reflect on my background

and my position as an ethnographer, and by doing so to make clear that this study is as

well limited by my own perspective.

17
http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=352411http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=352411


26/70

Chapter Three: Kirupa.com_________________________________________________________________________

This chapter will discuss the findings obtained through the research. It is going to be

divided into five sections: Description and Background Information, An Online

Community?, Why do They Contribute?, Collective Order Maintenance, and Self-

Reflection.

Description and Background Information

Kirupa.com contributes today over 2.6 million pages to over 550,000 unique visitors

each month, as stated on the site (Chinnathambi 2010, [online]). In short it is a free

portal where novice and professional web developers and designers come to learn,

share knowledge, help each other with specific technical problems, and ultimately have

fun.

I will explore next some of the background and general aspects of the website such as

its author, how the site came into existence, the different sections it includes, how does

everything work etc

The Author

Kirupa Chinnathambi was born in Salem, India, in 1984. He migrated with his family to

Italy when still a child and then to Germany where he studied First and Second grade.

In 1991 he moved to the USA where he graduated at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology in 2007, majoring in Computer Science and Technology. He started

Kirupa.com in 1999, which was back then just a small website covering several

computer topics on Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and Adobe Flash. Even still a

young man Kirupa has achieved several undertakings worthy of recognition such as

18


27/70

writing at the age of sixteen a 530-page book for McGraw-Hill on the topics covered on

his website, working as a Program Manager for Microsoft, meeting Bill Gates twice, and

last but not least making Kirupa.com be what it is today.

Advertisers & Supporters

Kirupa.com has several commercial advertisers and supporters. Throughout the

homepage we can access links to their websites. Activeden.net is a website where a

wealth of different web developers and programmers sell various kinds of website

devices such as galleries and image viewers, website templates, media players,

animations, application pre-loaders etc all of them built with Adobe Flash technology.

Snacktools.com, Digicraft.com.hk, Flashcomponents.net, Flashloaded.com, and Page-

flip.com, sell website components and applications. Mediatemple.net is a hosting

company that offers a 15% discount to members of Kirupa.com. Flash-filter.net and

Everythingfla.com have free Flash tutorials. Finally the Thehungersite.com is a website

dedicated to charity.

Members

Although the above supporters may have surely helped Kirupa.com grow bigger we

must not forget their members. Kirupa.com has today 156,445 members, many of them

who are actively engaged in by producing tutorials, helping people with technical

problems gratis, moderating the fora etc Without its members Kirupa.com would not

be what it is.

Becoming a member is free of charge and the only thing that is needed is to fill-in a

simple form with some basic personal data. By becoming members we are allowed to

perform a whole array of different tasks such as posting in the fora, participating in

19


28/70

contests, posting our own tutorials, customising our profile by adding pictures and other

personal information, adding other members to our friends list, creating and becoming

part of social groups, sending private messages to other users, creating and uploading

picture albums, using the forum live chats, subscribing to forum threads etc

Tutorials

Through the first five links down Kirupa.coms main menu we can access literally

hundreds of video-based and text-based tutorials produced by a wealth of different

authors who have contributed to the website, including Kirupa himself. The tutorials

cover problems on plenty of different web programming languages such as C#,

ASP.NET, PHP, ActionScript and AJAX; on IDEs such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft

Silverlight; on other software such as After Effects, Photoshop and Fireworks; and on

topics such as animation, design and game development.

Contests

Further down the main menu we will find the Contests section, where different contests

on design and web-related topics are held and in which any of Kirupa.com s members

can participate. Contestants have to follow some guidelines, which are stated in the

contests relevant section. After the submission deadlines are over members will vote on

their favourite designs and web applications, and the three winner contestants will

receive cash prizes.

20


29/70

The Fora

I will pay special attention into explaining how the fora work, as it the most complex part

of the website, and one of much relevancy to this research. The whole forum system is

powered by vBulletin, which is a popular commercial community software product.

The forum area contains several sections, which are Talk, Flash, Expression Blend /

Visual Studio, Development , Art and Design, Careers and Forum Information. Each

of these sections is divided into subsections. The Talk section contains five different

fora, which are Random (a place to talk about anything you want), Kool Sites (where

people post links to websites they like), Showcase & Critiques (where users review

each others websites), Computers & Games/Tech (for talking about technology or

games), and Source/Experiments (for downloading source files for cool or useful

things). The Flash section contains five different fora related to the Adobe Flash

software, which are ActionScript 3 (for discussing technical problems related to Flashs

programming language), Flash IDE (for discussing questions related to the Flash

software), ActionScript 2 (and Earlier), Game/AI Programming, and Best of

Kirupa.com (where the most useful posts written by members are displayed). There are

five other sections with many more subsections. I will not go through all of them for the

sake of brevity, however I will point out that there are enough forum categories to talk

about anything and everything, almost all of them related to web design & development

specific topics.

Inside each of the forum categories we find numerous links to different threads. These

links are displayed in a one-column view containing information such as the threads

title and its author, the number of views and replies it had from other members, and the

date, time, and nickname of the member who posted last.

The first threads we notice in some of the fora are sticky threads, which are privileged

over normal threads and hence will always stay right at the top. These sticky threads

21


30/70

have been created by some of the most active members at Kirupa.com and contain

useful information for the users, such as answers to frequently asked questions, code

snippets, links to tutorials, general tips, and important notes for the correct usage of the

relevant forum. Every other thread will stay below these. If we post a new thread with a

particular question or problem that we need help solving, a link to it will appear at the

top (below the sticky threads). If someone else posts a new thread, or replies to an

older thread after us, then our thread will appear in second place and so on. Each forum

may have hundreds or even thousands of pages, which can be accessed through some

numerical links at the top and at the bottom of the forum page, each with links to thirty

different threads. The Flash IDE forum, for instance, is one of the most active and

oldest ones, containing today 4378 pages with thirty threads each, which add exactly up

to 131,340 forum threads. The first post recorded was posted in March 2002. If we

make the mathematics we get roughly an average of forty-five new forum threads per

day. This gives us a sense of how active these fora can get.

There is a search system built onto the website that can be very useful in finding

particular problems that have already been answered. Not all threads get replies

though. This might be in some instances for the fast pace in which new threads are

created, sending unanswered ones down the list and back to pages other than the main

one. In other cases it might be because the problem is not properly explained,

insufficient data is given, or the answer to the question already figures in the sticky

threads. It is encouraged that users try to find answers to their problems before posting

in the fora. Being such activity, asking for help on questions that have already been

answered is not generally well seen (specially I would guess, by the people that

contribute more effort and spend more time at the community), and may reflect a lack of

care or just overall laziness, as it has many times been the case. We must not forget

22


31/70

that this is a self-supported community where people help each other gratis and without

any obligation.

Inside each of the threads, and to the left of the main content of every post some

information is displayed, such as the authors name, an avatar, the members location

and the number of posts the member has contributed to the community. This number of

posts helps to give an idea of how experienced or at least how involved in the

community that person is. Some very active members have over 10,000 posts. Kirupa

himself has posted, up to this date, 14,712 times to the fora.

One further thing to add is that the fora at kirupa.com have thirty-five moderators who

make sure that members follow forum rules and behave appropriately.

About Kirupa

Through the last of the main-menu sections we can access several pages with different

information about the website. We can find here an article where Kirupa Chinnathambi

introduces himself in a friendly and informal way. Other pages introduce the websites

moderators, offer different graphics authored by members to be used to link to

Kirupa.com, give information on the websites evolution, and credit and thank people

who have contributed to the community.

An Online Community?

As we have seen in the literature review there has been much scholarly concern

focusing in and stressing the importance of properly defining the term online

community (Gochenour 2006, 33-51) (Fernback 2007, 49-69) (Cox 2008, 327-345)

(Baker and Ward 2002, 207-224). Susan Herring (2004 cited in Cox, 2008, 330)

provided us with six criterions that would help in deciding if an online group could be

23


32/70

considered an online community; in this section we will see if according to these

Kirupa.com can be considered so.

Herrings first point states it should be an active and self-sustaining group and it should

have core of regular participants. Kirupa.com, since its start as a forum in 2002 and up

until today has had, according to their statistics, a total of 2,206,573 individual posts in

the fora. Making a rough calculation by taking the number of posts and dividing it by the

number of days in eight exact years we find out that there is an average of around 750

posts per day, which is quite striking. If we have a look at Appendix Iwe can read what

are Kirupas views on this figure. According to him the global count of forum posts

should be wrong, however he points out that by adding individually each of the fora

post-count we should get a reliable number. By doing that we would get an average of

only 50 posts less per day, which is not such a huge difference. Overall it seems that

these numbers are unreliable because the site was hacked some time ago. Anyhow by

looking at the amount of members, posts, information, and the activity at any given time

in the fora we will reach the conclusion that Kirupa.com is definitely a very active and

self-sustaining place. The latter point will be reinforced by the fact that there are thirty-

five moderators monitoring the fora who definitely help in sustaining the community by

making sure that everyone behaves well and follows the rules. Also, as we will later see

in more detail everyone takes part in maintaining and moderating the fora. There are

also plenty of users that have over a thousand and even several thousand posts. The

moderators themselves are some of the most active members in the fora, which is

probably the reason why they became moderators in the first place. The Random

forum at Kirupa.com is used to talk about anything. People that do not participate much

in the fora will be less likely to use this section. On the other hand members that have a

long history together are far more likely to engage in conversation here. Without any

doubt by observing the Random forum for some time we will reach the conclusion that

24


33/70

Kirupa.com has plenty of regular participants who not only talk about web design and

development.

Herrings second point talks about a shared history, purpose, culture, norms and values.

It is difficult to determine what an accurate and reliable evaluation of some of these

points can be in an online environment. It can be ascertained though, that Kirupa.com

forum users have a shared purpose, which is that of learning, constructing knowledge

on specific topics, and helping each other with specific problems. We could also agree

that Kirupa.coms members share norms and values, as there is a forum solely devoted

to forum guidelines and rules.

The third point of Herrings definition of online community states there should be

solidarity, support and reciprocity. Without any of these three elements the fora at

Kirupa.com would clearly not burst with life as they do. One of the main purposes of the

fora is asking for help and if no one felt solidarity, reciprocity or the desire to support

each other forum activity simply cease to exist.

The fourth of Herrings points refers to criticism, conflict and means of conflict

resolution. If we refer to Appendix II we can find a transcription of a forum thread posted

at Kirupa.com. This thread is situated inside the Showcase & Critiques forum. A

member (Subject A) is asking here for a review of a website. As we can see Subject B

misbehaves by answering in a very rude and non-constructive manner and as a result s/

he is banned from the fora. What follows is a participation of several other members

giving extensive valuable and constructive criticism on that website. Finally Subject A

thanks everyone and adds a few other points referring to specific comments that he

obtained from other members. We have here a clear example of criticism, conflict and

conflict resolution.

25


34/70


35/70

Why Do They Contribute?

One of the most interesting things about online communities such as Kirupa.com is the

way in which people help each other and to learn. As I have stated earlier there are

many active members producing considerable amounts of content to serve the

community and helping others to solve specific technical problems, who have no

obligation to do so and who act out of free will. I will explore next the particular case of

one of the most active members at Kirupa.com.

Trevor McCauley, also known as Senocular, works at Adobe as a Flash Player Quality

Engineer and is an expert on Adobe Flash, which is one of the technologies that have

been most extensively covered at Kirupa.com. He has contributed a very large amount

of knowledge to the website, in the form of tutorials and also by answering to other

peoples problems. As we can see on his profile page he joined the community in

December 2002 and since then he has posted 17,296 times to the fora. His profile page

at Kirupa.com is filled with messages from other users that simply praise his hard work

and knowledge or that even ask him for further help on specific topics, as if what he has

already done for the community was still not enough (his personal webpage at

Senocular.com has further tutorials and source-code that can be used for free by

anyone and for any purpose whether this commercial or not). It is interesting to ask the

following question, which has been one of much scholarly interest: What motivates

people to contribute so much into these communities?

According to a brief e-mail interview that Trevor has answered in a very plain fashion

(Appendix III), the reason that he contributes so much to Kirupa.com is simply to help

others. Sonja Utz (2009, 357-374) has argued that the main motivation for contribution

inside these community environments is of an altruistic nature: people contribute

mainly because they like to help others and find pleasure in interacting with other

27


36/70

community members (2009, 370). However other factors come into the equation too.

Wasko and Faraj (2005, 35-57) make a slightly different case in their research study:

Individuals contribute knowledge to electronic networks of practice when theyperceive that it enhances their professional reputations, and to some extent because

it is enjoyable to help others. They contribute when they are structurally embedded inthe network, and when they have experience to share with others. Surprisingly, wefind that individuals who contribute knowledge do not seem to be more committed tothe electronic network of practice than noncontributors, nor do they seem to expecthelp in return.

53

It cannot be rebut that professional reputation can play as well an important role in

defining the motivational nature of knowledge contribution in online communities. Trevor

McCauley will surely benefit in several ways from having posted so much material at

Kirupa.com. He is a well-respected community member and he can as well impress

potential employers with his non-profit work. Furthermore Trevors huge amount of

knowledge on his area of expertise makes us doubt that he would use Kirupa.com in

order to solve his technical problems or even to learn anything about Flash. When

asked what was the thing that he most valued about kirupa.com he simply answered

community (Appendix III). Therefore, instead of being one or the other, community,

altruistic action and professional and communal reputation might just reinforce each

other in motivating for contribution.

Mark Sharrats and Abel Usoros study Understanding Knowledge-Sharing in Online

Communities of Practice (2003, 187-196) resonate with the above and provide us with

further factors that will influence motivation in knowledge sharing in online communities

such as:

the ease of use and perceived usefulness of the information system; trust basedupon the benevolence; competence and integrity of the community; the perceivedproximity of knowledge-sharing to career advancement; sense of community; andorganisational value congruence.

193

28


37/70

It is important to note that without the factors above these communities would cease to

exist. Not all members contribute in the same way to the community; some might only

ask for help and others might just read the content of the website. However non-

contributors are as well very important to the community as they conform the audience

for contributors.

It is interesting to see, as Caroline Wiertz and Ko de Ruyter show (2007, 347-376), that

in firm-hosted commercial online communities participants are more reluctant to

produce and contribute quality knowledge for the community. This, they explain, might

be because:

A customer who is very committed to the host firm and its products and servicesmight expect better treatment than that, and in fact expects the host firm to providethe service, rather than fellow customers. As a result, s/he is not willing to make aneffort in the community and provide high-quality answers.

Wiertz and Ruyter 2007, 370

Kirupa.com can be considered an informal and friendly community whose main purpose

is to provide people with the tools to help each other to learn on a specific area of

knowledge. Even though it has advertisers, these are non-intrusive and they simply

provide services that may be useful to, and benefit users of the community. Let us not

forget that the website also provides a link to a charity organisation. On the whole,

although Kirupa.com may benefit commercially in several ways, we can consider its

main purpose to be non-commercial. This factor, along with the efficiency through which

Kirupa.com serves as a place for learning and the way in which it connects a large

number of people working or learning in the same industry allowing them to conform a

community of their own, might be the reasons for its thrive.

29


38/70

Collective Order Maintenance

By comparison with early dystopic prophecies from both left and right, the Internethas become neither anarchic nor an Orwellian nightmare, rather, it has becomeremarkably ordered. This sense of order results from a complex assemblage ofnetworked nodes of security that continually shape virtual behaviour.

Wall 2007, 410

As we have seen Kirupa.com has thirty-five moderators responsible for maintaining

order and making sure that members behave appropriately within the community. As

Kirupa explains (Appendix IV) he initially asked a few members to moderate the fora.

Overall and following to that, moderators themselves nominated all subsequent

moderators. They do not have any official responsibilities nor do they have to comply

with any special rules, as apparently they do the work for free. Only if they want they

can use an array of different tools, which are only available to them, in order to help in

running the fora. Kirupa says that there is a balance between very active and inactive

moderators. One will surely ask, how can only 35 moderators, of which only about half

are active, monitor such an active environment in which any of 155,629 members may

participate? The truth is that every member can easily help to moderate and in fact a

great number of them do. The fora provide the ability for any member to report on any

post that is considered offensive or that contains spam or advertising. As Kirupa states

members use them considerably and moderators inboxes are filled with reported posts.

Interestingly we can see how every member of the community actively takes part in

maintaining and sustaining it. This clearly reflects further on the value that the

community has for its members, which make them participate actively and also help to

sustain and maintain the community.

30


39/70

In Which Ways do they Learn?

In this section I will discuss the different ways in which Kirupa.com members learn

through the website.

We have seen that Kirupa.com contains online text-based and video-based tutorials. To

illustrate you with one between hundreds of examples on the website you can refer to

Appendix V. Here Trevor McCauley (Senocular) explains the basic principles of

isometric perspective for the creation of 3D objects in Adobe Flash. We could simply

argue that by reading tutorials and putting their ideas into real practice, users of

Kirupa.com are able to learn. Moreover, as Claudio G. Cortese argues (2005, 87-115),

there is as well extensive learning that can be acquired through teaching. Even those

who, like Trevor McCauley, are gurus of the subjects discussed at the fora and their

main activity lies in producing learning materials for others, we could argue, take as well

an active part in learning. By writing tutorials, for instance, one will organise knowledge

and synthesise it properly. Delivering knowledge in a successful way is not an easy

matter and by actively producing tutorials the skills involved are put into practise and

developed further. It may be even argued that you cannot know something properly

before you can teach it. So I support the idea that producing tutorials is as well a very

active take in learning. Even this element can be added to the list of motivations for

knowledge contribution in online communities discussed above. Paradoxically one

might be willing to contribute knowledge just in order to learn.

The contests are as well an interesting matter. People may engage actively in these and

make an effort to win the incentives. By being challenged to be the best among others

one might put extra effort to produce some quality work and learn something new in the

process.

31


40/70

The fora at Kirupa.com provide as well a very interactive and useful way for members to

share knowledge and learn from each other.

If we take a look at Appendix VI we will find a forum conversation between several

users. The author of the thread basically tries to gather knowledge about what software

development systems and text editors are other fellow developers using to write

ActionScript, and the reasons why they are using them. We can see how participants

actively engage producing knowledge on this subject, which is based on their own

experiences. They draw upon the advantages and disadvantages that different kinds of

software have and they state which is their preference among them. Having access to

this kind of information produced by plenty of people involved in the same tasks can be

invaluable for any fellow person. It can save them time in testing other software and

they will have a critical and comprehensive view of what other people, who may be

more experienced or may not, think about the subject. To collect so much information on

the topic in any other way than through the Internet or through an online community like

Kirupa.com would require one to have direct contact with many experienced people that

work in the same industry. It may very well not be the case that people have the time to

gather this information outside their own homes, and certainly not in less than a day,

which is the time span in which this thread has unfolded. In this way online communities

such as Kirupa.com empower their users by giving them a very effective way to collect

knowledge that otherwise would have been difficult or even impossible to obtain with

such efficiency. This empowerment and effectiveness of knowledge sharing resonates

with the concepts we have seen of collective intelligence that Hofkirchner (2007, 496)

mentions or even the global brain theories by Bloom (2000), Russel (1983), or Mayer-

Kress and Barczys (1995, 1-17).

A further way to learn through the fora is, as we have seen in Appendix II, to post some

original work to get critical reviews from other members. This as well can be very helpful

32


41/70

and enlightening for any person. We would all agree that having our work critically

reviewed by many other peers can make us learn about what can we improve and how

can we improve it, where did we go wrong, or at least what are other peoples views on

it.

In Appendix VII we can refer to another example of a forum thread. We can see how

this time a member is asking for help in order to solve a particular problem. However,

because s/he does not expose the problem in an appropriate way s/he does not get any

help. On the other hand s/he receives two replies from two different members who

explain why they are unwilling to help him/her.

In a way it could have been thought that online communities such as Kirupa.com in

some instances promote easy help and the ability for someone to seek for this help

without having looked first into the problem carefully and by their own, or without having

explained the problem with enough detail. However we can see how in instances like

this other members are unwilling to help. In order to use the fora at Kirupa.com to seek

for technical help one needs to learn how to explain problems properly and in detail, and

through this make it easy for others to provide help, or otherwise it would have been a

vain attempt. As Subject Cexplains in Appendix VII: you need to sell the problem to us

a bit to get us interested.

In Appendix VIII we can find, on the other hand, an example of a successful way to ask

for help in the fora. Subject A explains the problem carefully and provides some sample

code as well as an error message that he/she gets when testing the code. Subsequently

and in the mere time span of one hour and twenty-five minutes three other members

provide two different solutions. Subject B replies plainly by just providing a link to an

Adobe resource that explains a certain method that will be useful for solving the

problem; Subject C elaborates slightly more on the same solution; and Subject D

33


42/70

provides a much more elaborated response that sheds light into a different solution, and

explains why he/she considers the first solution not effective. He as well offers further

help if anything was left unclear to Subject A. Finally Subject A thanks for both

suggested solutions and explains how he/she was able to tackle the problem.

Here we have seen an example of a very common way in which Kirupa.com is used for

learning.

Members at Kirupa.com have to have as well the knowledge and education to behave

appropriately and have good manners inside a community, even if those are limited only

to a textual environment, as are Kirupa.coms fora. As we have seen in Appendix II

users may be banned from the fora for lack of respect to other users, and in this way be

taught a lesson by loosing access to a valuable community. In Appendix VIII we can

read an interesting post that is inside the Forum Guidelines/Suggestions forum. Here a

member urges other members to have respect for others and do not abuse each other.

We can see then how in order to remain a member of a big and international online

community one has to be polite or either has to learn to be so.

Above we have seen most if not all of the ways in which the online community

Kirupa.com is and can be used for e-Learning. We could argue that these very much

resemble the communal constructivist approach, whose main characteristics we have

seen back in the literature review. For instance Kirupa.com has people at all levels of

experience in web development. Anyone who has the knowledge to solve anyone elses

technical issues, be she or he an expert or a beginner in the field, can have a go to help

or to teach anybody else. Furthermore we have seen how writing tutorials is as well a

way of learning. These points fit into the communal constructivist concept we mentioned

earlier where learners become teachers and teachers become learners. The way in

34


43/70

which Kirupa.com offers free dynamic ways of learning as well resonates with the

concept of empowerment of learners in the discussed theory of learning.

Self-Reflection

In this section I will reflect on the perspective, background and standpoint that have led

me to carry out this research so as to seal the ethnographic approach and proceed to

conclude the research.

For the last three years I have been learning web development in languages such as

HTML, CSS, ActionScript, JavaScript and Php. I am mostly self-taught and since I

started learning on the subject I have been using online communities such as

Kirupa.com. The way I found them is by searching on Google for keywords related to

specific problems I was having and finding answers in the forum posts of some of these.

I became more drawn to some such as Kirupa.com and I ended up becoming a

member.

I found them really useful to help me in solving particular problems mainly, in my case,

for the lack of offline support I had and for knowing almost no one that worked in the

same field in which I have been training myself. At first I got used instantly to the fact

that they were there and that I could use them freely to ask for help. After a while it

struck me. How would I have managed to get answers to my problems without these

communities and without any formal teaching on the subject, or without anyone around

me who was experienced on the topic? The answer is surely through books; however

reading is quite a solitary task and many times I had to read through much information I

already knew in order to get to the specific problem I was looking for. On the other hand

by searching keywords on the Internet I could easily find forum posts with the answers

to my specific problems. On last resort I would make a forum thread asking for help and

35


44/70

many times, to my surprise, I had several answers within incredibly short amounts of

time that gave different ways and solutions for approaching the problem. At this point is

where I became conscious of the power that these communities were giving me.

Without them my self-taught learning experience would have been much more tedious

and long lasting. So it is here where I felt a genuine Interest to research the subject.

It is important to note that this research is limited by my very perspective on the subject.

Having been a member of Kirupa.com may have biased my findings and although it

may have facilitated my research for the knowledge I already had on the website, its

uses and some of its members, it may as well have made me take certain aspects for

granted, and in doing so miss out other elements that may have produced further

insights into the research.

It would be interesting therefore to see what results produce other studies that explore

the same topic, but that are researched by someone that does not belong or has not

participated in the community being studied. Then two different perspectives could be

weighed against each other and a more impartial view would be reached.#

36


45/70

Chapter Four: Conclusion_________________________________________________________________________

The purpose of this thesis was to study the ways through which users of the open-

source, online, e-Learning community Kirupa.com learn and exchange knowledge.

In doing so it was determined that Kirupa.com is in fact an online community according

to the criteria set by other scholars. Furthermore light was shed into aspects correlated

to the main issue of research, such as member motivation as well as community

sustainment. Looking at a thriving community such as Kirupa.com facilitated to

determine the reasons that might make this system of informal learning so appealing. It

was found that altruistic action, community, open-source, and personal and communal

reputation all interplay an important role in its thrive and success. Other factors that

have a major impact relate to the empowerment that the medium and the technology

grant for their users. As we have seen the World Wide Web, despite its rapid growth

and development hitherto, offers enormous potential and is yet in a very early stage of

evolution. As Scott Wright and John Street argue (2007, 849-869) the interface design

as well as its commissioning play a vital role in defining and expanding the democratic

potential of the web. In the same way these factors play a major role in defining the

ways in which these communities are and can be used. It would therefore be very

beneficial to focus further research into improving the efficacy of web interfaces as well

as expanding the possibilities that these grant for online communities.

The research showed how the sustaining and maintenance of the community happens

spontaneously through a global commitment that is based on the value that is put into

the possibilities and benefits that the technology and the specific environment grant.

It was discovered that knowledge is exchanged through a dynamic and rich system that

strongly resembles the cornerstones of the communal constructivist theory of learning. It

37


46/70

is therefore suggested that it would be very valuable for the educational sector to study

further how these communities have sprung, how do they operate and why they are so

successful. This way there would perhaps be a better chance to successfully apply

communal constructivism to a formal learning environment. Furthermore Andrew

Sackville (2010, [online]) enlightens us with some interesting thoughts regarding the

relation between formal and informal learning:

We shouldnt see formal and informal learning as distinct and independent entities.They are part of a continuum. They can take place alongside each other enrichingeach other.

9

It might then be a good strategy to find effective ways of coupling formal and informal

education, so as to combine the best of both into a synergistic new model for education.

Limitations of this study relate to the very position and standpoint of the researcher. It is

suggested therefore that further research on the same topic, carried by someone who

stands in a different position, will help to give perspective and to validate this research.

On the whole this research has drawn attention to the effectiveness, advantages, and

potential of new open-source systems of online knowledge exchange, and encourages

the expanding of academic knowledge in this area in order to improve, promote, and

expand their uses.

38


47/70

Bibliography_________________________________________________________________________

Bakardjieva, M. (2003) Virtual Togetherness: An Everyday-Life Perspective. Media,

Culture & Societyvol.25, no.3, pp. 291-313.

Baker, P.M.A. and Ward, A.C. (2002) Bridging Temporal and Spatial Gaps: the Role of

Information and Communication Technologies in Defining Communities. Information,

Communication & Societyvol.5, no.3, pp. 207-224.

Bloom, H. (2000) Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the

21st Century. U.S.A., John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Bozalek, V. and Matthews, L. (2009) E-learning: A cross-institutional forum for sharing

socio-cultural influences on personal and professional identity. International Social

Workvol.52, no.2, pp. 235-246.

Chinnathambi, K., 2010. kirupa.com - Advertise on kirupa.com [online]. Available from:

http://www.kirupa.com/me/ad.htm [Accessed 12 June 2010].

Cortese, C.G. (2005) Learning Through Teaching. Management Learningvol.36, no.1,

pp. 87-115.

Cox, A.M. (2008) An exploration of concepts of community through a case study of UK

web production. Journal of Information Sciencevol.34, no.3, pp. 327-345.

Fernback, J. (2007) Beyond the diluted community concept: a symbolic interactionist

perspective on online social relations. New Media & Societyvol.9, no.1, pp. 277-281.

Flicker, S., Haans, D., and Skinner, H. (2004) Ethical Dilemmas in Research on Internet

Communities. Qualitative Health Researchvol.14, no.1, pp. 124-134.

39
http://www.kirupa.com/me/ad.htmhttp://www.kirupa.com/me/ad.htmhttp://www.kirupa.com/me/ad.htm


48/70

Gochenour, P.H. (2006) Distributed communities and nodal subjects. New Media &

Societyvol.8, no.1, pp. 33-51.

Graham, G. (1999) The Internet: a Philosophical Inquiry. London, Routledge.

Gunkel, D.J. (2003) Second Thoughts: Toward a Critique of the Digital Divide. New

Media & Societyvol.5, no.4, pp. 499-522.

Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (1995) cited in Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography.

London, Sage Publications.

Hemetsberger, A. and Reinhardt, C. (2006) Learning and Knowledge Building in Open-

source Communities. Management Learningvol.37, no.2, pp. 187-214.

Herring, S. (2004) cited in Cox, A.M. (2008) An exploration of concepts of community

through a case study of UK web production. Journal of Information Sciencevol.34,

no.3, pp. 327-345.

Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography. London, Sage Publications.

Hine, Christine (ed.) (2004) Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet.

New York, Berg.

Hofkirchner, W. (2007) A Critical Social Systems View of the Internet. Philosophy of the

Social Sciencesvol.37, no.4, pp. 471-500.

Holmes, B., Tangney, B., FitzGibbon, A., Savage, T. and Mehan, S., 2001. Communal

Constructivism: Students constructing learning for as well as with Others [online].

Dublin: Centre for Research in IT in Education. Available from: http://www.scss.tcd.ie/

publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdf [Accessed 15 July 2010].

Holmes, B. & Gardner, J. (2006) E-Learning: Concepts and Practice. London, Sage

Publications.

40
http://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdfhttp://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.01/TCD-CS-2001-04.pdf


49/70

Huysman, M. & Lin, Y. (2005) Learn to Solve Problems: A Virtual Ethnographic Study of

Learning in a GNU/Linux Users Group. The Electronic Journal for Virtual

Organizations and Networksvol.7, pp. 56-69.

Leask, M. and Younie, S. (2001) Communal Constructivist Theory: Information and

Communications Technology Pedagogy and Internationalisation of the Curriculum.

Technology, Pedagogy and Educationvol.10, no.1, pp. 117-134.

Mayer-Kress, G. and Barczys, C. (1995) The Global Brain as an Emergent Structure

From the Worldwide Computing Network, and its Implications for Modelling. The

Information Societyvol.11, no.1, pp. 1-17.

Richards, S. (2002) Future Net: the past, present, and future of the Internet as told by its

creators and its visionaries. New York, John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Russel, P. (1983) The Global Brain: Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary

Consciousness. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.

Sackville, A., 2010. Please Sir, I want some more More! Oliver Twist in the 21 st

Century: Diminished Resources and Enhanced Learning [online]. Ormskirk: Edge

Hill University, Faculty of Education. Available from: http://www.iutconference.org/

papers/MaximizingResourcesInAGlobalEnvironment/Sackville.pdf [Accessed 27 July

2010].

Sagan, C. (1995) Cosmos: The Story of Cosmic Evolution, Science and Civilisation.

London, Abacus, pp 328-332.

Salomon, G. and Perkins, D. (1998) cited in Holmes, B. and Gardner, J. (2006) E-

Learning: Concepts and Practice. London, Sage Publications.

41
http://www.iutconference.org/papers/MaximizingResourcesInAGlobalEnvironment/Sackville.pdfhttp://www.iutconference.org/papers/MaximizingResourcesInAGlobalEnvironment/Sackville.pdfhttp://www.iutconference.org/papers/MaximizingResourcesInAGlobalEnvironment/Sackville.pdfhttp://www.iutconference.org/papers/MaximizingResourcesInAGlobalEnvironment/Sackville.pdfhttp://www.iutconference.org/papers/MaximizingResourcesInAGlobalEnvironment/Sackville.pdf


50/70

Sawnhey, M. and Prandelli, E. (2000) Communities of Creation: Managing Distributed

Innovation in Turbulent Markets. California Management Review vol.42, no.4, pp.

24-54.

Schell, B.H. (2007) The Internet and society: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara,

ABC-Clio, pp 1-52.

Scrimshaw, P. (2001) Communal Constructivist Theory: A response to Leask and

Younie. Technology, Pedagogy and Educationvol.10, no.1, pp. 135-141.

Sharratt, M. and Uosoro, A. (2003) Understanding Knowledge Sharing in Online

Communities of Practice. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Managementvol.1, no.2,

pp..

Sonaike, S.A. (2004) The Internet and the Dilemma of Africas Development. Gazette

vol.66, no.1, pp. 41-61.

Tavangarian, D., Leypold, M.E., Nolting, K., Roster, M. and Voigt, D. (2004) Is e-

Learning the Solution for Individual Learning? Electronic Journal of e-Learningvol.2,

no.2, pp. 273-280.

The World Bank, 2010. Global Internet Usage World Bank Search DATA [online].

Available from: http://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet

%20usage&language=EN&format=html [Accessed 30 June 2010].

Utz, S. (2009) Egoboo vs. altruism: the role of reputation in online consumer

communities. New Media & Societyvol.11, no.3, pp. 357-374.

Wall, D.S. and Williams, M. (2007) Policing Diversity in the Digital Age: Maintaining

Order in Virtual Communities. Criminology and Criminal Justice vol.7, no.4, pp.

391-415.

42
http://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=htmlhttp://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=htmlhttp://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=htmlhttp://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=htmlhttp://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=htmlhttp://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=htmlhttp://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=global%20internet%20usage&language=EN&format=html


51/70

Wasko, M. and Faraj, S. (2005) Why Should I Share? Examining Social Capital and

cyber communities of learning

Documents