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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> OT ("communities of practice") listserv - forum facilitation FAQ
Bruce, Jared & folks,
See below for the info I was looking for yesterday (I gave you the wrong site, sorry).
regards,
ep
cc: bbergman_at_BridgeMedical.com
http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/vcfaq/facfaq1.shtml
version 0.9
FAQ Editor: George Pór
About this FAQ
When and why forums have to be facilitated?
What are the main roles and responsibilities in
facilitating forums?
System Administrator
Account Administrator
Forum Convener
Community Architect
Moderator
Content Facilitator
Cybrarian
About this FAQ
Most of the roles and responsibilities
described in this FAQ are part of a new kind
of work with no ready-made job-descriptions.
The responses are definitely not definitive;
they will change as our understanding of the
requirements for effectively facilitating virtual
communities will deepen through the feedback
from, and collaboration with facilitators
reading and contributing to this FAQ.
When and why forums have to be facilitated?
Facilitate = make easy, promote, help forward
action or result. (Oxford Dictionary)
Online facilitators or hosts are the primary
enablers of any virtual community. It is their
enthusiasm and attention to the participants
challenges in communicating and collaborating
in cyberspace, that can make or brake
fledgling online communities. Without their
efforts "it is difficult to build momentum,
maintain the flow and generate the activity that
will help to ensure return visits."
(Denham Grey)
Developing competence in facilitating the
electronic meeting of minds that takes place in
forums is a must in companies that want to turn
the web tools and methods of coordination into
a strategic advantage to achieve breakthrough
results.
The number of required facilitative functions
is raising along the following continuum:
Communities of interest (hobby groups) --> communities of practice (professional communities) --> communities of commitment (teams, taskforces, work groups).
What are the main roles and
responsibilities in facilitating
forums?
Responsibilities outlined under the following roles
can be assumed by one or a few individuals in
small virtual communities.
In larger communities, they are divided among the
participants of the facilitation team.
System Administrator
Participates in the administration of the server
Contributes suggestions and implements
software-related measures for maximizing uptime
Maintains software integrity and forum security
Provides other participants of the facilitation
team and users with technical support
Account Administrator
Implements access privileges
Issues or confirms user names and passwords in
password-protected forums
Forum Convener
Forum Convener, sometimes also called
chairperson, is a function of someone who has a
major stake in the forums outcome(s), typically
performed in task-oriented virtual communities.
Community Architect
Optimizes the community's structure and design to
help it meet its purpose
Using the appropriate combination of groupware
features, designs virtual spaces to meet specific
community functions
Drafts guidelines for forum community norms
("community covenant")
Writes and edits user agreements
Designs the structure of initial topics
Seeds topics with context-setting materials
Designs strategy and mechanisms for collecting and
incorporating feedback from participants
Moderator
The moderator, also called "host" or "organizer":
Participates in the preliminary planning of the
forum with the sysadmin, convener, and community
architect
Welcomes and acknowledges participants
Stimulates participation and sustains interest
Facilitates a healthy group dynamics conducive to
higher quality contributions and achieving
objectives in task-oriented forums
Keeps the conversation focused on the purpose of
the forum
Provides pointers to sources of user support
Models behaviors of effective communication and
collaboration
Provides closure: in task-oriented forums, s/he
declares the forum or any topics of it closed, when
its function is complete
Content Facilitator
The Content Facilitator, in some communities also
called "learning guide" or "knowledge gardener":
Seeds, feeds, and weeds the forum topics to trigger
and maintain productive dialogues
Introduces issue(s) and materials for discussion,
provides additional information, ideas
Provides ongoing editing to enhance the usefulness
of content
"Weaves" conversations -- highlights patterns of
emerging meaning, solutions, or consensus, by
pointing out relationships among ideas and
information expressed and setting hypertext links
between them
Asks questions for consideration
Synthesizes key points and themes
Asks and inspires forum participants to help with
all of the tasks above
Cybrarian
The cybrarian helps users overcome information
overload, navigate the forums,and access or receive
the information when they need it and how they
need it. She or he:
Maintains forum indices
Writes conversation summaries
Creates and updates dynamic maps of forum topics
and threads
Decides how should forums, topics, and messages
be linked to corresponding libraries on the
community's website
Archives/compacts forum according to agreed on
forum norms
Suggests filters, priority flags, and hot spots
Compiles list of links pointing to off-forum
resources relevant to specific forums
Please send your suggestions for changes and additions to George Pór at gpor_at_co-i-l.com
© 1997, Community Intelligence Labs, Soquel, CA, USA. We believe in sharing intellectual property freely, but also in giving credit to its creators.
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Author: Eric D. Pierce
INET: PierceED_at_csus.edu
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