This is not a public version. Please do not quote or distribute without author's permission .
Changes in this version:
Rewritten:
Intro Par 1
WHAT IS AN ONLINE GROUP? renamed it and rewritten
Numbered all sectionsDeleted:
- All the "specialist roles"
List Owner Cybrarian Moderator Editor, from table of contents and from the body of the doc
Added:1.5 Generic And Specialised Roles In Online Groups
2. Project Owner
- 1.1 What Is A Role?
- 1.2 Cyberspace
- 1.3 Roles In Cyberspace
- 1.4 What Is An Online Group?
- 1.5 Generic And Specialised Roles In Online Groups
3. Project Manager
4. Designer
5. Host
6. AdministratorTop
7. Participant8. Links
9. Aminutiae
- 8.1 References
- 8.2 Biblography
- 8.3 Web
- 8.4 Index
In this document we identify and describe people's roles in various online groups. Our purpose is to create a resource that will help people make online groups sucessful. We envisage that the relationships between people can be improved and that the work can be more productive if people can confidently be in appropriate roles.We believe online interaction works best when *people* do things well, when they have the roles! We advocate the simplest, lowest common denominator technology for most communication. Better mailing lists and email clients are needed and will come, but people can also "upgrade" their *abilities*, there is much to explore and learn about the *human capabilities*. It will be exciting to see major leaps in technology produce new interaction environments, just as interesting is to see the people dimension evolve. Whatever the software, people need adequate roles. The grasp of the roles is developing as fast as the hardware and software, and is crucial in the equation of progress. Getting the *roles* clear will assist those who design software, and that is our hope.
We particularly have the Host of an interaction environment in mind as we write. Host has become the generic term for a person who performs many roles in an OIE. Central to the role is direct contact with the members of the OIE and commitment to the success of the project. Hosting can be seen as an emerging profession in its own right. As Host, one person may enact many roles. They are distinct roles, however, and may be shared among the members of a hosting team.
The terminology used for roles varies among software packages and has evolved differently in different contexts. Drawing from the literature and from case studies, we will identify some generic roles. For each role, we will list the tasks, skills and personality traits that are associated with the role and mention how they relate to other roles. Then we will show how the names and descriptions of roles vary in a range of settings.
We hope that practitioners and students of online group communication will find this document of practical use, and that there will be lively discussion. We are happy to make changes if we see their merit and will acknowledge contributions in future versions of this document.
We acknowledge the influence of J. L. Moreno who developed his terminology in the highly interactive environment of Psychodrama. His definition is that "Role is the functioning form the individual takes in the specific moment he reacts to a specific situation in which other persons or objects are involved." (Moreno, 1977, p. IV) This means that at any time, whatever we are doing, can be described in role terms. Roles defined in this way are not a mask, they are ways of being ourselves.
Roles include thoughts, feeling and action. Think of this broadly as involving our whole way of being, our "weltanschauung", our commitment to particular values. In this paper we will mention the central aspects of the roles that are at their mainspring... for example a Manager is enlivened by his or her desire for orderly execution of the prime directives of the enterprise.
Moreno described three types of roles. We are mostly concerned here with the "social roles" such as Manager, Author, Teacher and so on. To understand the social roles in depth, it will help to understand the two other types in his schema, the "somatic roles" (soma=body) which come to us from the structure and make up of our bodies, such as Walker, Eater, Sleeper, and the "psychodramatic roles" which highlight the psychological aspects of our functioning, for example: Intrepid Explorer, Cunning Fox, Mother Theresa.
We will examine how people constructively involve themselves in cyberspace. First, however let us clarify what we mean by "cyberspace".
We could think of the networked computer as a tool which helps us to communicate, however the tool has so radically altered our experience that we have new words to describe it. Cyberspace, a term coined in the 1980s, describes a distinct new environment. To look at the roles we enact in online communication it is helpful to explore the nature of this environment and how we are present in it.
In cyberspace, everything, including the body, is represented in another form. In cyberspace we interact with representations and abstractions that people have created. Face-to-face experience is lost in the case of text based communication and altered in the case of video, or graphical avatars. If the digital representation is recorded, we can experience it any time, this asynchronous communication leads to our experience of online time as a distinct flow separate from chronological time.
Face to face (breath-on-air as bandwith) has its own structural constraints, those of our bodies have a form matched to the space time environment; we are subject to gravity, we require light to see, we can hear certain frequencies. We propose an abstracted view of the body as a structure which both permits and constrains the functioning of an individual in a particular environment which has specific persistent characteristics.
Online communication is mediated via hardware and software. However we go beyond thinking of access to files, we go "into" a place and software has environmental qualities "platforms", "workspaces", "levels", "groups" and "communities". Obviously we do not enter into cyberspace *physically*, to "go" there, we associate ourselves with certain units of software, we have a software representation; an email address, which can then be given attributes, such as a user name, and passwords that will enable it to go into certain "places" and perform certain actions.
Avatars are entities sent to earth by gods to act in the physical realm. In cyberspace we are represented by our avatar. At its most fundamental level, our avatar is the email address which represents us. The email address can then accumulate attributes, such as access to files. We associate with this cybersoma and experience being alive in a world alongside the physical world; cyberspace.
Moreno described three aspects of a role; thoughts, feelings and action. We have added a fourth aspect; the cybersomatic.
Some roles are hard-wired into the software. An example is list owner, which then has a strong cybersomatic aspect. The software of most mailing lists *demands* that there be a person in such a role. Even if we do not use this name overtly, but use the word Administrator and Host, list owner is present as a purely cybersomatic aspect of the role.
Moderator is a social role, we know what a moderator is in ordinary (North American) usage, in the online world it has a cybersomatic aspect in that one designated as the Moderator receives all communication before it is approved for distribution. Some online communities have various levels of membership with each level adding cybersomatic powers. There are experiments to hard wire democracy into online groups. <Footnote 1> This aspect of the computer environment is used extensively in MUDs, MOOS and adventure games where new powers are added as each level is completed. It is important to understand the cybersomatic role structure in a particular environment.
It avoids confusion if a person is not called a Moderator or Wizard unless they have the cybersomatic preconditions, i.e. if the software is set to give them those abilities. It is important for software designers to name roles, when they embed them in the software, in a way that meshes well with the social role. For example an administrator is different from a manager.
An online group supports the social interaction among group members. At the same time it accumulates a record of the shared knowledge of the group. Here we categorise online groups by their *purpose* from the perspective of the participants.
Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE)
collaboration on a specific task, usually the
production of a document
Virtual Community (VC)
discussion
Virtual Work Space
integrated with other media -
especially face to face & phone learning,
knowledge base development, support, group building
Community of Practice
share ideas, challenges, develop shared
thinking, develop knowledge base, support,
develop relationships, innovation, monitoring
quality and ethics
Knowledge Place
An online environment for sharing specific and
quite structured knowledge. Examples include
organisational standards and procedures or
how to use a software system. As well as building
a knowledge repository, the purpose often includes
working together to revise and develop new knowledge.
Online Learning Environment (OLE)
teaching, learning, integrated with other media or
not, content or skills or conceptual focus
1.5 Generic And Specialised Roles In Online Groups
This document focuses on the small number of roles that are that are necessary in all online groups. Even specialised online groups (like CVEs and Online Learning Groups) require the generic roles though they also require certain specialised roles to be present.
The generic roles are:
People with these generic roles do not need to have the specialised roles fully developed but it is useful for them to be aware of them.
- Project Owner
- Project Manager
- Designer
- Host
- Administrator
- Participant
Some specialised roles are 'native' to specialised types of group. Others can be of use in a variety of types of group. Here are some specialised roles.
CVEs:
- Editor - [brief description could go here]
- Author
- Collaboration Facilitator
- Core Contributor
- Info Only
Online Learning Groups:
- Presenter
- Teacher
- Learner
- Mentor
- SME (subject matter expert)
Knowledge Place:
- Cybrarian
Psychological Groups:
- Therapeutic Guide
Other Specialised Roles:
- Facilitator
- Moderator
Ownership is in disarray. There was a time when slaves were owned. In some cultures people can own land. We can now own not only machines and wires but the bits that flow through them. It has been said that property is theft, and also that information is free, yet the term Owner has a long history in cyberspace, List owner, owner of software, author etc. One use we advocate is Project Owner, in the literal sense of the word as the one who pays for it all. No where is it really free to create an online interaction environment, even using free software on the net such as eGroups or Communityware, there is effort used in creating the environment as a whole. Someone has to name it, write the welcome file and charters etc and promote it. Thus in a specific project it could be that the owner is the person who designs the environment, has the pass word needed that could delete the whole endeavour. However the Project Owner may well pay someone to do all those tasks. For example: A company decides to create a Mailing List for its sales staff - A Community of Practice in our typology. The existence of the list ultimately depends on the person who pays and allocates work to the sales people. It is well to remember who the real owner is, as that person or group must have their goals and aims for the interaction met for the process to continue. An example of the power of the Project's Owner was evident when the discussion forums in Netcenter were simply discontinued by the owner <Footnote 2>. They do not have all the power however, as the communities shifted to sites using Communityware.
Owning the project involves its own ethical considerations. The owners of Geocities tried to claim rights to the content put there by users. <Footnote 3> Far from owning the content the project owner has the ethically needs to consider and respects the participants ownership of the content.
Skills: Entrepreneur Tasks: Staff employment and liaison, pay staff, allocate resources, evaluate viability Ethical Considerations: Honour participants contributions.
Community Manager is sometimes used for what we have in mind here. The word community may be used for sites that consist of several asynchronous forums, web pages, chat rooms etc., however in many contexts "community", while necessary may not be the prime focus, for example in a Support Centre. The person who makes sure it is a goer, we are calling the Project Manager.
The Project's Owner, while having the ultimate say over the endeavour, may have little to do with its creation or day to day functioning.
Figallo HWC Page xi
"The relationship between the user and the site as a whole must be monitored by one key person -- the Community Manager -- who takes on the responsibility of keeping that relationship a good one."
Monitoring is a key word here, we add: organizing, supervising, managing, responsibility, liaison, training, encouragement, evaluation, good will. We could add also that in time limited projects, termination is also an area that needs attention.
Once a project is going well, and the members are participating, the host is hosting and the system is running well, there may be little for the Project Manager to do, however to maintain that positive process requires active attention and involvement. The others in the project, both at its inception and those involved in an ongoing basis will work best when they feel well supported, trained and trusted.
Note that the Project Manager often reports directly to the Project owner (perhaps the CEO or Director). While they may, sometimes be done by the same person, the environment *design* involves another role. The Project Manager may have some influence on the design, the role here is to *implement* a plan and a design.
Software designers at Cooper http://www.cooper.com/philosophy.html made this comment on design:
When we say design, we don't mean dolling up some dog of a product with cuter-than-a-bug icons. "Putting lipstick on a pig," as one of our favorite clients put it. Goal-Directed design goes much deeper than just making things look cool and is applicable to virtually any category of interactive product.The design of an interactive environment has many layers. The choice of operating system and the choice of medium, such as Internet or Intranet, or Usenet, or the World Wide Web involve design decisions, even if they are thought of as programming. In this paper, we are primarily thinking about the person who uses *existing* software, and is not involved in designing the software itself. The designer of an OIE is like the architect. The person, employed by the Project Owner, to come up with the plans that suit all concerned.
Cyberspace is created by representation. Hence things *are* what we call them. A Lounge is a particular type of interaction environment, and if we call a mailing list Staff Lounge, then that will largely determine the interaction that occurs there. Choosing the right name for the spaces is part of the Designer's job.
There is more to it than naming. If we have a place called Staff Lounge, then it must be open to people designated as Staff, and closed to non staff. Building that into the plans is part of the Designer's job.
All this sounds simple enough, remember that such a place has to work well for the Project Owner and the people who use it, as well as the Host of the Lounge. Liaison with these people is integral to design.
The Designer is a person who creates a structure, that meets the criteria of the owner and is possible given existing affordable materials and useable by those who are to use it.
My introduction to Hosts was in Compuserve Forums circa 1991.
There they
were not called Hosts, but ??. They had special
signs around
their sig, id, thus: ::Jim::
The next awareness of the online role was Sysop of a BBS. Then
List
Owner. Not until I read Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual
Community"
did the term Host clearly come to consciousness. That
was at some point
reinforced by John Coat's now classic text:
Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building
Online Community.
http://www.sfgate.com/~tex/inkeeping
A shorter and precise summary of the role is Howard Rheingold's:
The Art of Hosting Good Conversation Online.
http://www.rheingold.com/texts/artonlinehost.html
Figallo HWC Page xi
"I expand the definition of the host to encompass the entire
staff of
a Web site. Hosting is not just one person's job, it is
the mission of the
entire company that provides the Web site. It
includes the means that the
site uses to pay for its existence...
Hosting involves every element of the
Web site's operation, from
design to customer service to marketing."
We are thinking of Host like that, if there is only one person
who is
doing it all, lets call him or her the Host, if there are
specialisms in the
group, then at the centre of the discussions
and liaisons it is good to have
the Host of the forums.
These ideas about the Host and Hosting are very useful and come
from years
of online experience and how it can work well.
In this document we reccommend the three above as having defined
the role,
not only for communities, but for that aspect of all
online groups, even if
community is far from their minds.
While we advocate the more generic use, there is also the
very
specific focussed role. Notice that the role has lost its
close
links with the cybersomatic, it is quire distinct from List
Owner
and Sysop. We prefer Administrator for those roles. The
Host
must of course liaise closely and know what is possible...
for
example can a person be put on review, is the system secure, etc.
It is also distinct from the Project Manager, who has a
broader
perspective, and to whom the host is ultimately answerable.
The
Project manage thus has to know a thing or two about hosting to
do
that job.
Separate too from the specialists such as *facilitator*, teacher,
speaker,
therapist etc.
~~~
the central focus for the Host role is the wellness
of
the group as a whole...
Much like a doctor has an ethical duty to protect life
so the
Host is ethically bound to perform that task... and yes it
does
mean some severe surgery at times... never on a whim!
Though
that accusation may all too readily be there, and being ready
for
that, and preempting it will come naturally (after much training
:) to
a Host.
"He reads another message simply because of the return address.
From: root@pallas.eruditorium.org
On a UNIX machine, "root" is the name of the
most godlike of all users, the one
who can read, erase, or edit any file, who
can run any program, who can sign up
new users and terminate existing
ones. So receiving a message from someone who
has the account name
"root" is like getting a letter from someone who has the
title
"President" or "General" on his letterhead. Randy's
been root on a few
different systems, some of which are worth tens of
millions of dollars and
professional courtesy demands that he at least reads
this message.
CRYPTONOMICON page 244
root is not god. The *administrator* is subject to the decisions of the Host.
7. Participant
The value in online groups is produced by participation. It is that value (whatever it is) that attracts people to join and participate. Their participation, in turn creates more value, motivates more participation and so on. None of the other roles in online groups can produce this value. They can only add to the value-compounding effect of participation.
No-one can make participants participate. Participation is voluntary. Participation, however is the only way that the purpose of the project can be achieved. The purpose of the entire infrastructure is to conditions where participation flourishes. Like a customer, the Participant is Monarch.
A Participant must first join. To join, a participant must specify a user name of some kind and usually a password. This "user account in the system" becomes their virtual body, cybersoma or avatar. Members' user names appears on the list of members. The user account has certain rights associated with it, most typically the rights to read and create posts in the group. Participation online involves bringing the self into the software entity.
Of course once someone is a member they may not be a very active participant, or one who contributes to the life of the group. This may be because they have things to learn, or because they have not yet involved themselves in the group or read the guidelines etc. Once a person is a fully fledged participant in an online group, what is the essence of the role?
A Participant regularly receives and contributes purposefully to the group. The mutually beneficial experience will mean that there there are bonds between people, and also a commitment to the success of the group as a whole.
An Article in the NY Times: Improving Dialogue on the Internet By DENISE CARUSO
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/05digi.html
Talks about:
"Civic Exchange: Strong Democracy in Cyberspace, a project based in part on the theories he [Benjamin Barber] developed in his book on participatory democracy, "Strong Democracy."
The article mentions the following:
"Unchangeable, though, is a rule imposed by the
software itself: The group must elect its own moderator. Barber says this single
feature alone may solve the dilemma of online anarchy vs. democracy -- if not
for the Internet writ large, at least for those seeking meaningful
dialogue."
ROLES IN CYBERSPACE
From Salon:
"But last Wednesday, with no warning, the forums were abruptly turned off, the hosts let go, and the community members left to wonder what, exactly, happened to their home. The demise of the community is a byproduct of the AOL takeover of Netscape, but that doesn't help the community members whose online hangout has been suddenly shuttered.
"There's a lot of annoyed users out there. This is not a responsible way for a corporation to run online communities," says Elizabeth Lewis, who until last week was one of the Netcenter community hosts. "Those of us who are in community building for the long haul are concerned about how Netscape did this. It's not so much that they shut the community down -- although I don't think they gave the forums enough of a go -- but it's how they did it."
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/computimes/1999/0712/comp6.htm
Monday, July 12, 1999
Irish Times
Computimes
MONITOR
Yahoo surrenders to its homesteaders
''Yahoo has once again revised the terms of use for its GeoCities Web community after members protested that proposed copyright clauses released late last month robbed users of control over the content of their own websites. The row started when Geocities members became alarmed by language in an agreement which gave Yahoo "the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable. . . license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display" their content.
''In a clear attempt to mollify users, the new terms
state (our italics): "Yahoo does not claim ownership of the content you
place on your Yahoo GeoCities site. By submitting content to Yahoo for inclusion
on your Yahoo GeoCities site, you grant Yahoo the world-wide, royalty-free and
non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the content. . .
for as long as you continue to be a Yahoo GeoCities homesteader."
PROJECT OWNER
Top
REFERENCES
BIBLOGRAPHY
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~mpc3/moderators.html
Resources for Moderators and Facilitators of Online
Discussion
mauri collins and Zane L. Berge
Berge Collins
Associates
Comprehensive list of resources.
INDEX
Copyright (C) 1999. Groupsense and Psybernet PO BOX
13543 Christchurch New Zealand
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted for non commercial use in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
The best way to contribute to future versions of this
document is to join the Roles Online Mailing List, see the description for
details.
____________________________________________________________
Version History
Version 0.08
19990930
This is not a public version. Please do not quote or distribute without author's permission .
Changes in this version:
Rewritten:
The knowledge base to knowkedge place WHAT IS AN ONLINE INTERACTION ENVIRONMENT (OIE)
The section on EDITOR
DESIGNER
Deleted:
Section on OWNER
propose to write a separate bit on that.
Trimmed the COPYRIGHT to its essentials
Added:
ADMINISTRATOR quote from ns
BIBLOGRAPHY one item
Our email addresses in the title.
Version 0.07
19990902
This is not a public version. Please do not quote or distribute without author's permission.
Changes in this version:
Rewritten:Sequence of Contents (not reflected in the order of the sections as yet.)Major rewrite of PROJECT MANAGER as posted to the list on Saturday, 7 August 1999
Deleted:
Added:
Whole chunk on OWNER, which now includes Project owner... left old section there for now.
Minor changes in wording in par 2INTRODUCTION. Also in par 1 &2 in WHAT IS A ROLE?
Note about Public document above.
Minor stylistic Changes to the HTML formatting, notably more use of <blockquote>, more to be done.
A new section at the end: CONTRIBUTE TO THIS DOCUMENT
To the first par in WHAT IS A ROLE? also modfied the last par there -- posted these changes to the list and may revise them soon.
Deleted:
Second to last par in 0.05 WHAT
IS A ROLE? was redundant as we put it in the Intro.
Added:
An
additional paragraph to the INTRODUCTION
(second par)
Footnote 1 in ROLES
IN CYBERSPACE
Section at the end on COPYRIGHT
Rough
draft for AUTHOR
A
whole new chunk in EDITOR...
still some there to be deleted etc. From email: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 11:01:30
GMT
Version 0.05
25 June 1999
Changes in this version:
Rewritten:
ROLES IN CYBERSPACE (from Walter Logeman post on 7
June, with some minor changes)
DESIGNER (from Walter Logeman post on
7 June, with some changes)
Moved:
ROLES IN CYBERSPACE to
follow the section on Cyberspace
A paragraph on roles
from
ROLES IN CYBERSPACE to ROLES
Version 0.04
7 June 1999
Changes in this
version:
Rewritten:
WHAT IS A ROLE?
(Status:
Proposal)
Added:
CYBERSPACE (Status:
Proposal)
Version 0.03
29 May 1999
Put the version on the web in in HTML
<http://www.psybernet.co.nz/roles/roles003.htm>
Added:
CONTENTS (with links)