What drives user contribution in an online community? A study in contributor influence and user status

Hirotoshi Takeda, Michael J. Cuellar, Brett Young, Robert Sainsbury

Research output: Contribution to book or proceedingConference articlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Online communities (OC's) depend on shared interests and user interactions mediated by technology. Successful OC's find ways to encourage these interactions to grow communities. Many OC's have influential users that help grow the community by their very presence and contributions. However, the process for identifying users having the greatest impact is not trivial. This study offers a new method for identifying these influential users through the creation of modified Hirsch indices, which improves upon the current method of using contribution counts or a survey method of polling other users. We validate the new measures against user status and then analyze the measures by correlating them against postings, thread starts, and views and replies to the thread starts for a shared interest OC.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012
Pages3851-3859
Number of pages9
StatePublished - 2012
Event18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012 - Seattle, WA, United States
Duration: Aug 9 2012Aug 12 2012

Publication series

Name18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012
Volume5

Conference

Conference18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySeattle, WA
Period08/9/1208/12/12

Keywords

  • Hirsch index
  • Influence
  • Online Community
  • Online Identity
  • Replies
  • Threads
  • User status
  • Views
  • Virtual community

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