Administration Guide
A guide to establishing and supporting
successful online groups.
Most online groups fail. Either no participation occurs at all or
the participation that occurs does not achieve the intended purpose
of the group. One of the reasons for this is that group members do
not directly benefit from contributing to a group, they benefit when
others contribute to the group. People make the effort to contribute
therefore, because they anticipate that they will achieve some benefit
in the future. The perception that contributing will be worthwhile
increases as participation and trust build in the group. In the opening
stages of new groups, it is up to the convenors of the group to convince
the group members that participation is worthwhile.
The chances that relevant participation will occur can be increased
by adequate design and support and by
having a clear role for participant
in the project.
Even with both of these, participation development is often slow.