PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Goal : Building an online learning community, where users teach each other Fundamental question : "Who is going to teach what to whom?“ and "What alternatives are currently available for this kind of learning?" OUTLINE : User Classes Usage Scenarios Evaluating Alternatives: Offline Evaluating Alternatives: Online Does the World Need More than One Online Community? Domain Name System MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 1 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Divide your users into classes: Two users fall into the same class if you expect them to want substantially the same experience with your service. Think about different levels of administrative privileges as you are dividing the users into classes. Do not think about teachers versus learners; the whole point of an online community is that each user learning some of the time and each user is teaching some of the time. Example : User class decomposition on photo.net : A place where a person can go and get the answer to any question about photography. Considering levels of administrative privilege. site-wide administrators, moderators, regular users MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 2 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Divide your users into classes: Example Cont’d : Differently, dividing the users by purpose in visiting the service: wanna-be point-and-shooter novice photographer shopper novice photographer learner expert photographer wanna-be commercial photographer exhibitor traveler reader MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 3 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Divide your users into classes: Example Cont’d : Dividing users by the way they connect : The Web browser user, A mobile user, A telephone user. Our engineering challenge is similar in all the cases. MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 4 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Usage Scenarios : Write down a rough idea of what a person in this class would get from your new service. Hint at page flow. Example: novice photographer shopper at photo.net Should start reading carefully authored camera-buying advice articles Then reviews of specific cameras. Now it is ideal if he or she could be directed into a Q&A forum where "here's what I've decided to buy; what do you think?" questions are welcomed. Example: site-wide administrator at photo.net Should log in and see a page that gives the pulse of the community With statistics on the number of new users registered, The quantity of photos uploaded into photo sharing system, The activity in the discussion forums, The relative efforts of the moderators, Unbanned users problematic activities. MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 5 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Evaluating Alternatives: Offline Learning environment can be much improved by careful study of the best offline alternatives. Example: Popular Photography magazine Extremely effective at answering the following questions: What is the price of a Nikon 50/1.4 lens? What are the latest cameras available? How the new Canon Elan 7 body perform on a test bench? Ineffective for start-to-finish learning. ineffective for finding the average price for a used or obscure item. Ineffective as a means of getting answers to arbitrary questions. Only four questions are answered per issue. Ineffective as a means of exhibiting reader work. The "Your Best Shot" column displays five or six reader- contributed photos in every issue, but being selected is a slow and uncertain process. MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 6 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Evaluating Alternatives: Online It is useful to think about the following elements of sustainable online community: 1.magnet content authored by experts. 2.means of collaboration. 3.powerful facilities for browsing and searching both magnet content and contributed content. 4.means of delegation of moderation. 5.means of identifying members imposing undue burden on the community and ways of changing their behavior and/or excluding them from community without them realizing it. 6.means of software extension by community members. MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 7 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Does the World Need More than One Online Community? Factors preventing concentration in online learning communities : One is the idiosyncracy of authorship. A person may believe that Anna Karenina is the best novel ever written and simultaneously be interested in reading C. D. Payne's Youth in Revolt. The second force is the nature of community itself. "We believe the limits are reached when the population of a region reaches some 2 to 10 million. Beyond this size, people become remote from the large-scale processes of government. Given sufficiently high quality magnet content and an initial group of people dedicated to teaching, there will always be room for a new learning community. MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 8 INTERNET ENGINEERING

PLANNING CHAPTER 3 Domain Name System : The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-readable hostnames, e.g., into machine-readable and network-routable IP addresses, e.g., Choose a good Domain name and register it. MOHAMMAD BORUJERDI 9 INTERNET ENGINEERING