Strengthening Cultural Competence in Prenatal Care With a Virtual Community: Building Capacity Through Collaboration

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. S48-S53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne L. Weideman ◽  
Lisa Young ◽  
Joan Such Lockhart ◽  
Faye J. Grund ◽  
Mark M. Fridline ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Prenatal Care ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Building Capacity

3D Virtual Community Building Applications in the PANIVE Architecture

2000 ◽  
pp. 268-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Flerackers ◽  
Nic Chilton ◽  
Rae Earnshaw ◽  
Wim Lamotte ◽  
Frank Van Reeth
Keyword(s):  
Community Building ◽  
Virtual Community

Virtual internet communities and commercial success: individual and community-level theory grounded in the atypical case of TimeZone.com

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank T. Rothaermel ◽  
Stephen Sugiyama
Keyword(s):  
Community Building ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Site Management ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Internet Communities ◽  
Community Organizer ◽  
Internet Community ◽  
The Individual

One potentially powerful way of organizing in the new Internet world is through the medium of the virtual Internet community. An effectively managed virtual community provides economic gains to the community organizer and to its members. We attempt to build theory grounded in the study of TimeZone.com, a virtual Internet community devoted to wristwatch hobbyists and enthusiasts. We argue that a member’s off-site communication, experience, perceived value of site management, content, and collectively held knowledge are positively associated with a member’s e-based economic transactions within this virtual community. Building on our theorizing attempts at the individual level, we develop propositions at the organizational level that relate characteristics of virtual Internet communities (membership size, scalability, and level of site management) to commercial success.

scholarly journals Beyond the bow: a digital solution for the queer community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarina A. Zlatanovic
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Queer Spaces

Beyond the Bow is an app for the LGBTQ+ community which will allow users to find queer events in their areas, get involved, circulate information, and help foster and build physical queer spaces in the GTA. Connection of strangers and self-organization of the queer community is what allows for the growth of queer spaces in society and sustains the physical queer geography of cities. Development of this app will cultivate and expand public discourse and support member activity in our community, which is necessary to ensure the prosperity and maintenance of our public. This digital solution is informed by research conducted through participant observation, autoethnography, and discourse analysis. The work is grounded in queer theory. Beyond the Bow will allow for communication in a new, modernized way within the LGBTQ+ community, and help reshape our culture by creating and maintaining real-life connections and queer geography through mediated communication and virtual community-building tools. The overall goal of Beyond the Bow is to offer users an accessible virtual place, that will work as a gateway into our physical queer spaces by providing resources and information surrounding on-going activities and initiatives, thus enhancing member participation and promoting the success of our community.

Supporting Communities of Practice in the Electronic Commerce World

2011 ◽  
pp. 1224-1231
Author(s):  
Charlene A. Dykman
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Perfect Match ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Chat Rooms ◽  
Or Organization

The phrase communities of practice has entered the lexicon of our world today. It implies some sense of closeness, intimacy, and connection with people bound together through mutual interest in something (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). As the pace of change is increasing and technology and information overload is becoming an issue, the time available to nurture relationships in the real world is becoming threatened (Baker & Ward, 2002). At the same time, our need for answers and quick access to solutions through the exchange of knowledge and experience is growing exponentially. Knowledge management, as a practice, focuses on making effective use of the intellectual capital that is found in the network of relationships connected to a business or organization (Bate & Robert, 2002). This is a perfect match for the business that is engaged in e-commerce to provide its stakeholders with opportunities to build relationships, to find answers and solutions, to exchange knowledge, and to gain a sense of community deriving from the relationships with the business. This article discusses the potential for small businesses to develop and nurture their virtual communities on the Internet. There is also discussion of the technical foundation needed to make this happen. A virtual community is “an electronic meeting place where a group of people gather to exchange ideas on a regular basis” (Powers, 1997, p. 52). Such communities “allow broad communities of interest (e.g., all stakeholders) to coalesce around specific products and services” (Nambisan, 2002, p. 392). A community of practice is not necessarily always a virtual community. But virtuality greatly increases the potential for development of such a community that can be of great benefit to all stakeholders in this relationship. A virtual community represents more than just the activities involved in e-commerce or shopping online. Visiting a site and seeking information about a product may be the “portal” into involvement in a virtual community supported by that e-commerce retailer. Buttons and links to chat rooms, to Internet groups, and/or to similar retailers selling similar products are all part of the experience. Viewing the relationship with the business as the gateway to other relationships allows one to visualize the vast potential for community building through that gateway. If the business understands the potential benefits of providing this community building service, they will recognize the importance of sound technical infrastructure to support the efforts. A well-designed technical infrastructure provides a strong foundation to ensure flexibility, scalability, and adaptability to meet the changing user requirements of a virtual community and address inherent economic fluctuations in the marketplace. Managing the IS resources, including hardware, software, data, procedures, and support personnel, is a difficult task in a virtual community because they are subject to over and underutilization based on market changes that are difficult to predict and control. In his book, How to Program a Virtual Community, Powers (1997) defined five building blocks for a virtual community: inhabitants, places to see, things to do, a government, and an economy. Online members are inhabitants; often called avatars (or embodiments). A virtual community may have different places, locations, spaces, rooms, chat rooms, or even theme parks for its online members to visit. A community may also have different objects, props, and activities for online members, encouraging interaction among members who may be present at the same time.

scholarly journals The friends that game together: A folkloric expansion of textual poaching to genre farming for socialization in tabletop role-playing games

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Robert Underwood
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Fictional Narratives

Tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) are a folkloric form for creating and reaffirming community bonds and performing identity. Gaming is used to communicate and perform cultural capital and identity through fictional narratives, functioning as a form of community building and/or personal expression. With quotations from ethnographic research over the course of 2 years, including interviews with several groups of gamers and participant observation, I examine the ways that players create and affirm social bonds. I return to Michel De Certeau's idea of textual poaching, as adapted by Henry Jenkins, to contrast with it a new concept of genre farming. As both platform for and object of genre farming, RPGs allow players to display cultural competence, create and reaffirm social ties, and seek entertainment in a collaborative fashion.

Online Communities and Community Building

2005 ◽  
pp. 2203-2208
Author(s):  
Martin C. Kindsmuller ◽  
Sandro Leuchter ◽  
Leon Urbas
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Real Community

“Online community” is one of today’s buzzwords. Even though superficially it is not hard to understand, the term has become somewhat vague while being extensively used within the e-commerce business. Within this article, we refer to online community as being a voluntary group of users who partake actively in a certain computer-mediated service. The term “online community” is preferred over the term “virtual community,” as it denotes the character of the community more accurately: community members are interacting online as opposed to face to face. Furthermore, the term “virtual community” seems too unspecific, because it includes other communities that only exist virtually, whereas an online community in our definition is always a real community in the sense that community members know that they are part of the community.

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