This volume is unique in its focus on the learning and change that takes place in the building of communities in cyberspace. Knowledge and resources for knowledge building are central to both virtual and physical communities. Members, or participants, in any community are engaged in learning that is critical to the survival and reproduction of that community. This learning may be even more true for virtual communities than it is for physical communities. For those concerned with building virtual communities and those who are working to understand the impact of virtual communities on participants, clarity about the nature of learning and change that is enabled by the Internet is of particular importance.

At first glance, identifying the nature of learning and change that takes place as a virtual community builds out may seem a straightforwardenough proposition. A dearth of literature has supported the importance of community to learners of all ages (Barab & Duffy, 2000; Bellah et al., 1985; Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999; Brown & Campione, 1994; Lave, 1993; Wellman & Gulia, 1999; Wenger, 1999). Through community participation, learners find and acquire models and have the opportunity themselves to be models and apprentices. In community participation, activities such as asking questions and providing the person with whom one is talking with background information are both supported and socialized.

In this chapter, a virtual community is defined as a group of people whointeract with each other, learn from each others' work, and provide knowledge and information resources to the group related to certain agreed-upon topics of shared interest. A defining characteristic of a virtual community in this sense is that a person or institution must be a contributor to the evolving knowledge base of the group and not just a recipient or consumer of the group's services or knowledge base. Members and the community as a whole take advantage of information technologies and telecommunications for these purposes, in addition to face-to-face interactions they may have. The notion of learning as applied to a virtual community means that there is a mutual knowledge-building process taking place. Members learn both by teaching others and by applying to their own situations the information, tools, know-how, and experiences provided by others in the virtual community. In contrast, a local community is a group of people and organizations who have common interests, concerns, and mutual interdependence by virtue of their living and working in a geographic locality under a common government. In both of the case studies discussed in this chapter, efforts were made to strengthen local communities through applications of information technologies and telecommunications.

Learning and change in the virtual community is increasingly interdependent with learning and change in the participants' local institutions and local communities. This is a fundamental difference from earlier virtual communities.

If one were to read Building Virtual Communities for its references alone it would be a valuable book. We have accumulated a considerable body of literature that examines and theorizes online community, and this book does a marvelous job of pushing forward and extending the conversation about their manifestation and maintenance.

But the tensions they manifest and maintain can still be heard as a murmur beneath that conversation. Do we “build” virtual communities, or do they occur on their own, “organically”? Are they “imagined” or “real”? Is online community a new form of encounter with others, or is it a variation on the theme of a (siren) song? We know the virtual cannot (at least, not yet) be entirely disassociated from the “real” (Jones, 1998). And our research into online social phenomena is routinely escaping that trap of dissociation. Less and less of it may be critiqued in ways that Wellman and Gulia (1999) critiqued earlier Internet research that

But as our study of the online and off-line worlds we create continues to grow, let us also increase our sensitivity to the ways that we are creating the articulations between online and off-line.

In this chapter, we identify design considerations and strategies for creating online learning communities. Learning communities encourage integrated understanding and develop a common set of criteria for evaluating ideas. We report on four distinct learning communities focused on teacher professional development, curriculum authoring, scientific inquiry, and peer review of projects. The examples illustrate the design considerations and strategies that we use to facilitate the transformation and sharing of resources to support integrated understanding within learning communities.

Design considerations are general guidelines for creating effective communities. This chapter illustrates four design considerations for creating successful learning communities:

• Support the actual practices and daily tasks of the participants,

• Collect experiences and represent them in an accessible and equitable manner,

• Provide a framework to guide the learning process,

• Represent the identities of the community members.

We implement these design considerations in our communities using various design strategies. For example, a strategy for representing the identities of community members involves displaying photographs alongside comments in discussions. These design strategies, based on the underlying design considerations, encourage community members to share their ideas, build on each other's views, and refine their own understanding. Our instructional framework, called “scaffolded knowledge integration” (SKI; Linn & Hsi, 2000), inspired our design considerations and guided the learning process in the communities.

In this chapter, we describe how our design considerations and strategies scaffold four teacher and student communities as they exchange resources, develop coherent ideas, and support individual understanding.

This chapter addresses the way in which the Internet forms the core of an intentional, online community by promoting communication between interested parties. The Math Forum (mathforum.org) is a unique group of individuals who are committed to using computers and the Internet to enhance what they know about learning, teaching, and doing mathematics. The Math Forum includes programmers, project and service staff, Web persons, and an ever-expanding number of teachers, students, and other individuals (i.e., parents, software developers, mathematicians). Thus, community building for The Math Forum staff includes work with teachers, with partners (National Council of the Teachers of Mathematics, Mathematics Association of America, and so on), and with specific services developed by The Math Forum staff that enable teachers and students to come together to pose and seek solutions to problems.

The Math Forum uses the Internet to provide interactive services that foster mathematical thinking and discussion. These services include Ask Dr. Math and several Problems of the Week (PoWs); a teacher discussion format called Teacher to Teacher (T2T); an archive of problems, participant contributions (e.g., lesson plans), and past discussions; and an Internet newsletter. Within four years, with no explicit efforts to garner promotion or publicity, the site grew to include 1,600,000 Web pages and to attract 3.5 million accesses and over 800,000 visitors per month – a third of which constitutes sticky traffic ranging from world-famous mathematicians to elementary school children.

The computer mediated sharing of common interests, experiences, thoughts, and fellowship combined with an ability to access health and welfare information and/or challenge professional monopolies of expertise is becoming ubiquitous. This is especially true in the United States (Denzin, 1998; Ferguson, 1996) but is also increasing on a globalscale (Burrows et al., 2000). At the time of writing, the bulk of Internet traffic relating to online self-help, and social support occurs within the almost 20,000 different Usenet news groups. Also important are the 100,000 or so publicly accessible discussion lists. However, given the recent trend for different forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to coalesce with Web pages to form more integrated systems of information and online support (offering perhaps Web-based information services alongside integrated provision to join mailing lists, discussion groups, and/or to engage in real-time chat), the virtual geography of wired self-help and social support is in a state of some flux. This chapter asks what sociologists are to make of the emergence of these wired forms of self-help and social support?

We begin with an illustration of the sort of “virtual community care” and support with which we are concerned.

The concept of community of practice has become a major theme of teacher professional development (TPD) research and practice. Advocates argue that communities of practice (CoPs) can be powerful catalysts for enabling teachers to improve their practice (Lieberman, 1996; Rényi, 1996). A growing body of TPD policy research (e.g., Loucks-Horsley et al., 1998; Darling-Hammond & Ball, 1997) is beginning to converge on a common set of effective professional development characteristics that stem largely from CoP concepts. For example, Lieberman's (1996; Lieberman & McLaughlin, 1992) research on teacher networks builds on CoP concepts of social networks (Wellman, 1997) and community gathering places (Oldenburg, 1997). Lieberman (1996) describes how informal retreats and dinner meetings help build professional relationships and socialize new members into the fold, thereby solidifying teachers' commitment to the community.

A semiotics of Stamper (1973), based on the work of Peirce (1931–58), Morris (1938, 1946) and on others, and on ‘information theory’ (Shannon & Weaver 1949), has evolved into a set of semiotic methods for information systems. A radical, subjectivist stance has been accepted as the basic philosophy for developing the set of methods and tools for information systems development. In this chapter, the discussion will focus on the examination of the subjectivist paradigm and the semiotic framework (Stamper et al. 1988).

Philosophical stance

A paradigm is a set of the most fundamental assumptions adopted by a professional community that allows its members to share similar perceptions and engage in commonly shared practices. Scientific achievements recognised in the particular community and research traditions educate its members to commit themselves to the same rules and standards for scientific practice (Kuhn 1962). Adoption of a certain paradigm will determine the way of exploring the world; it will determine the research theory and method. The usual considerations on scientific paradigms may be complemented by considering a set of presuppositions as paradigmatic, thus relating the discussion to philosophy.

Objectivist paradigm

A predominant philosophical position is the objectivist paradigm which assumes that there is a subject-independent world, some objective reality. Objectivism in its rigorous forms regards the universe as being made up of self-existent entities.

If the objective of a system analysis is to understand and specify the users' requirements, then the next objective is to produce a design of a computer information system. The core of a computer information system comprises a database and other application programs. This chapter will address the semantic aspect of the computer information systems, and discuss the relationship between semantic models and database design.

The semantic aspect of databases

Data and code in a database are meaningless until someone assigns a meaning to them and someone is able to interpret them. The meaning of data is rooted in social and cultural conventions and norms. The assignment of meaning to the data and interpretation of the data have to follow the same social and cultural norms. The interpretation is a complex, creative act that relies on personal knowledge and understanding of the norms. A successful use of data and derivation of information meaningful to a user is a key issue in databases. This issue cannot be resolved by technical means alone but requires social and organisational arrangements.

There can be two kinds of meanings distinguished: intension (sense) and extension (or reference). These two notions can be applied to predicates, propositions and sentences. The intension of a predicate, i.e. its sense, is identified with the property it expresses; its extension is the generalised class of referents in the world of affairs that possess the property. The intension of a proposition is determined by the meanings of the predicates used; the extension is its correspondence to the world of affairs.

The method of Semantic Analysis offers a means of representing information requirements and database modelling. Based on the database theory and semiotic methods, a semantic temporal database is proposed. The semantic temporal database provides a technology of management of the data with semantic and temporal properties. A semantic temporal database language, LEGOL, has been developed for the specification of norms. LEGOL statements can specify constraints and triggers, and can be executed by a LEGOL interpreter.

Databases

A database, from the information technology point of view, can be regarded as a kind of electronic filing cabinet (Date 1995, p. 2). It can be defined as a persistent collection of logically related data that allows shared access by many users. A DBMS (Data Base Management System) is the application-independent software that protects and manages databases. Since the late 1960s when the pioneering DBMS, IMS, was published, the database technology has provided ever improving tools for information management. Since then, the development of new types of DBMS and research into new ways of organising information have been taking place. This section provides a quick review of some major contemporary types of database systems and of the presentation of the semantic temporal databases which are considered highly relevant to business information management purposes.

Developments in databases management systems

Relational DBMS is the most widespread and popularly used type of database systems nowadays. Other types of systems are also being introduced to meet diversified application purposes, typically the objected-oriented databases and deductive databases.

A sign has a meaning, and it can be used intentionally for communication. Pragmatics, as a branch of semiotics, is concerned with the relationships between an intentional use of a sign and the resulting behaviour of responsible agents in a social context. Communication takes place successfully when a meaningful sign is used with an appropriate intention between the two parties involved (e.g. speaker and listener).

This chapter addresses the effects of using signs in organisations. Before introducing the semiotic approach, various approaches to and techniques for analysis of the pragmatic aspect of signs are discussed in the chapter, such as speech act theory, functional grammar, and deontic logic. The semiotic approach distinguishes a number of elements in a communication act: propositions, propositional (or illocutionary) attitudes and perlocutionary effects. A communication act will further result in a variety of commitments and responsibilities. The method of Norm Analysis introduced in this chapter provides a formalism for one to identify and specify these important notions in analysing and modelling social and organisational aspects of communications.

Human communication

A social community is a purposeful system in which human beings act and interact with each other for achieving goals that may relate to the community or its individuals. ‘Doing things with words’ in a concerted way becomes a necessity for fulfilling ever more complex objectives of social beings in ever more complex organisations. Communication is the indispensable means by which agents in society coordinate their actions to achieve their goals.

Information analysis is also called information requirements analysis, or requirements studies. It shares with knowledge representation many fundamental concepts and principles. Similarities are found in techniques and methods for both. They both address how people understand the world and how to represent their understanding. Meaning of symbols and languages used in modelling is a central issue for both.

‘All men by nature desire to know’ – said Aristotle in his book Metaphysics. As an agent experiences in the flux of the world in which he acts, his faculty of sensation enables him to feel and observe affairs around him. His memory helps him to accumulate the observations and from them he learns about the world and knows what he can act upon in given circumstances. Many philosophers and scientists, such as psychologists and linguists, have been preoccupied with the study of knowledge. As computer scientists have joined in the inquiry, new perspectives of the study have been suddenly broadened. Knowledge representation has become one of the most important areas of study, because it is directly related to the exploitation of human knowledge by means of artificial intelligence, (deductive) databases, and other computer-supported methods. Each theory of knowledge (epistemology) presupposes a semantic theory; otherwise knowledge cannot be captured and represented with any language or sign system. Knowledge representation is about meanings, which are relationships between signs and the other things that they stand for.

Infomation and information systems

What is information? Many people have attempted to give a definition but most of them are not complete. A typical explanation is that information is processed data that has meanings to its users. But then questions arise in what meaning is. If information is to the study of information as object is to physics, and there are many laws by which we can study objects, then what are the laws by which we can study information? What is the study of information anyway?

What can be said here is that information is not a simple, primitive notion. Devlin (1991) compares the difficulties for a man in the Iron Age to answer the question ‘What is iron?’ and for a man in today's Information Age the question ‘What is information?’ To point to various artefacts of iron in order to answer his question would not be satisfactory; to demonstrate some properties of information as an answer to ‘What is information?’ is not good enough either. People can feel the possession of information, and can create and can use information. They gather it, store it, process it, transmit it, use it, sell it and buy it. It seems our lives depend on it; yet no one can tell what exactly it is.

In order to understand the nature of information, one may have to find some fundamental and primitive notions with which the question can be investigated and explained.

Development of a computerised system normally goes through several stages, and this whole process is termed a system development ‘lifecycle’. There are various lifecycle definitions (see Leslie (1986), Macro & Buxton (1987), Olle et al. (1991) for example). Many researchers have been engaged in bettering methods for each of the phases in a lifecycle. Some of the methods are aimed at one of the phases while others are claimed to be useful for more than one of them. Recently, a great deal of attention has been paid to user requirement analysis and specification. This is because, on examining the sources of difficulty for large systems projects, we find that the incorrect code is a relatively insignificant factor, dwarfed by incorrect functional specification and (even more significantly) incorrect requirements (Boehm 1981; Goguen 1992).

There are many ways to phase activities in systems development. Macro & Buxton (1987) point out that many models may be excessively simple while others are extremely elaborate. In general, activities of systems development can be grouped under a few headings: conceptualisation of systems scope, requirement analysis, systems design, implementation, validation, acceptance, maintenance, and, finally, obsolescence (which may be followed by activities of developing a new version of the system). The research programme MEASUR (Stamper 1993) has developed a set of methods to deal with all aspects of information systems development.