The Dynamics of Web-Based Community Safety Groups: Lessons Learned from the Nation of Neighbors The Dynamics of Web-Based Community Safety Groups: Lessons Learned from the Nation of Neighbors Awalin Sopan, P.J. Rey, Jae-wook Ahn, Catherine Plaisant, Alan Neustadtl, Ben Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland

Watch Jefferson County Community members Law Enforcement Law Enforcement Collaboration Success

Nation of Neighbors Online neighborhood crime watch platform. Members sharing neighborhood crime information. Online neighborhood crime watch platform. Members sharing neighborhood crime information. Report Post, Reply Invite, Accept Report Post, Reply Invite, Accept

Nation of Neighbors Website

NoN Reporting Interface

Computer Scientists Social Scientists Community Managers Combined Forces

1. What constitutes a successful community ? 2. Who are the influential members ? 3. How does the community dynamics change over time ? Research Questions

1. Successful Communities Brainstorm with community manager. Define metrics to assess the communities: Active Months Number of Members Total Activity Interaction Intensity Integrate the metrics in ManyNets.

Communities in ManyNets members

Communities in ManyNets activities

Communities in ManyNets Interaction Intensity

Activities in Communities Activities in Communities InvitationReport Distribution of Activity type All Communities Successful Communities

Fewer members, more invitations. - New communities focus on recruiting members. More members, more reports. 22% of participation were anonymous. Activities in Communities

2. Influential People 2. Influential People Leaders: Highly active members Contributing to a large portion of the total activity.

2. Influential People 2. Influential People Leaders invite new people to community. Invitation Distribution of Activity types of leaders

Leaders and Growth No of Leaders Member growth per month Regression analysis result

Leaders and Non-leaders Non-leaders Post Non-leaders Report Non-leaders Invites Non-leaders mean activity per month Leaders Post 1.0 Leaders Report 2.7 Leaders Invites 1.1 Number of Leaders 2.7 Regression analysis result

Existence of leaders increases participation of members and growth of community. 16 communities have leaders. None of them has any Law Enforcement official. Leaders make Difference Leaders make Difference

Sort activities from a community into bins by month. Display monthly activities on separate rows. 3. Dynamics over Time 3. Dynamics over Time

Reports became the most prevalent activity over time. Invitation decreased over time. Time

Take Away Messages for Take Away Messages for Community Managers Community Managers Leaders Reports Promote leadership among citizens Promote leadership among citizens Successful community Integrate with popular social media Visual analytics to understand communities

We cordially thank Art Hanson, Nation of Neighbor NSF (grant # IIS )