Best paper at HICSS-42! A Conceptual and Operational Definition of “Social Role” in Online Community

A shout out to my co-authors Eric Gleave, Howard (“Ted”) Welser, and Tom Lento – our paper “A conceptual and operational definition of “Social Role” in Online Community” got the best paper award at HICSS-42! The Hawaii International Conference of System Sciences has featured a great series of mini tracks over the years. The Persistent Conversations mini track has featured great work on threaded conversations, blogs, chats, wikis, and social media for more than a decade. This year our paper appeared in the Digital Media: Content and Communication Track.

With a very nice letter that puts the award in some context:

Ten papers out of 515 at the conference were selected for Best Paper Awards. Many thanks to track organizers Karrie Karahalios and Fernanda Viegas.

A previous paper in 2006 also got best paper: You Are Who You Talk To: Detecting Roles in Usenet Newsgroups, by Danyel Fisher, Marc Smith, and Howard T. Welser

Two years before that in 2004 Fernanda Viegas and I also published a paper at HICSS that got best paper: Newsgroup Crowds and AuthorLines: Visualizing the Activity of Individuals in Conversational Cyberspaces,
by Ferndanda B. Viégas and Marc Smith.

Tom Erickson maintains a great listing of many years of HICSS papers.

Here is Tom Lento receiving the award at the conference in Hawaii earlier this month:

More Best Papers from this year…

	Collaboration Systems and Technologies Track Minitrack: Cross-Organizational and Cross-Border IS/IT Collaboration Paper Title: Breaching the Knowledge Transfer Blockade in IT Offshore Outsourcing Projects – A Case from the Financial Services Industry Authors: Robert Gregory, Roman Beck, and Michael Prifling

	Decision Technologies and Service Sciences Minitrack: Information Systems for Sustainable Development Paper Title: Sustainability of Grasshopper Management and Support through CARMA Authors: John Hastings, Alexandre Latchininsky, and Scott Schell

	Digital Media: Content and Communication Minitrack: Social Spaces: Production and Consumption of Goods in Digital Collectives Paper Title: A Conceptual and Operational Definition of ‘Social Role’ in Online Community Authors: Eric Gleave, Howard Welser, Thomas Lento, and Marc Smith

	Electric Power Systems Restructuring Reliability and Cyber Security Paper Title: Infrastructure Protection in the Ancient World Author: Michael Assante

	Electronic Government Minitrack: E-Government Organization and Management Co-chairs: Helmut Krcmar, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, and Maddalena Sorrentino Paper Title: Understanding the “Boundary” in Information Sharing and Integration Authors: Lei Zheng, Tung-Mou Yang, Theresa Pardo, and Yuanfu Jiang

	Information Technology in Healthcare Minitrack:T Adoption and Evaluation in Healthcare Paper Title: Methodological Approaches to Measuring the Effects of Implementation of Health Information Technology (HIT) Authors: Lance Roberts, Marcia Ward, Jane Brokel, Douglas Wakefield, Donald Crandall, and Paul Conlon

	Internet and the Digital Economy Minitrack: Social Networks and Virtual Worlds for Work, Learning and Play Paper Title: Cyber Migration: An Empirical Investigation on Factors that Affect Users’ Switch Intentions in Social Networking Sites Authors:Zengyan Cheng, Yinping Yang, and John Lim

	Knowledge Management Systems Minitrack: Knowledge Management Tools, Technologies, Mashups, and Design Approaches Co-chairs: Stefan Smolnik, Nassim Belbaly, and Richard Orwig Paper Title: The Visual Wiki: A New Metaphor for Knowledge Access and Management Authors: Christian Hirsch, John Hosking, John Grundy, Tim Chaffe, David MacDonald, and Yuriy Halytskyy

	Organizational Systems and Technology Social Issues in Information Technology Paper Title: Making it Hard to Lie: Cultural Determinants of Media Choice for Deception Authors: Christopher Furner and Joey George

	Software Technology Minitrack: Architectures for Distributed Systems Paper Title: Celebrating Diversity in Volunteer Computing Authors: David Anderson and Kevin Reed

5 thoughts on “Best paper at HICSS-42! A Conceptual and Operational Definition of “Social Role” in Online Community”

Are we connected or socially disconnected…I personally believe that technology has reduced our social capital—the
relationships that bind people together and create a sense of community.
Consequences include decreased civility, loss of behavioural boundaries and increased crime. We must find ways to deal with our profound loss of
social connectedness.Even though technological advances have contributed significantly to the problem of isolation, the emphasis on individualism in today’s society has

compounded it.