Tutorial Six Technical Description

Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

Either search online for a community which interest you or choose one of the provided online communities to investigate. Make sure your selected a community that comprises some form of online forum, discussion page or chat room. You may also wish to see if your community has a Wikipedia entry.

Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating

http://disabledonline.com/


What is the brief or focus of this community

To provide the best content for people with disabilities, their families and friends. It provides beneficial resources for these people from shopping to websites and vendors.


What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute?

This site offers chat rooms for members to chat to people from all around the world; there is a place for members to post items for sale, vehicles or available jobs. It also gives the advertising compartment to provide resources on products that they have which are disability friendly for viewers to see. The chat rooms are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
You are able to email any questions or comments to the site and they will reply with answers as soon as possible.
There are other websites available through disabledonline.com that will take you to adaptive devices web pages as well as some assistive technology pages.
There is also the opportunity to add your own site of interest. There is a calendar that is filled with events for members to attend which will help promote the social aspects of having a disability.


Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking?

Wikipedia defines an online community as being a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. If the mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chatrooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks.[1]
Some people who have a disability may often find it hard communicating with others due to the social stigma that is attached to the word disability. So becoming part of an online community will help promote abilities to connect with people of similar interests/needs/concerns, can compliment real life communities and can help provide connections over great distances. However, there are some negative aspects of becoming a part of an online community. These include the technology compatibility, misuse, limited communication tools, delusional reliance on virtual communities and the validity of the information that is being shared.

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt).

I am unable to access the chat rooms to cut and paste some excerpts on discussion but I am able to see the types of subjects that are available for the users of the site to see and find out about. These include things such as arts and entertainment, employment, education, government, home and living, legal, medical, news and articles, organisations, recreation, shopping, social and travel.


Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability.

Majority of the information that is shown on disabledonline.com can be accessed by any other person who has access to the internet. This becomes an ethical issue when for example, you wanted to remain anonymous and there was someone else in the chat room that may recognise what you are saying. The internet is filled with ethical issues that are not abided by such as safety and confidentiality issues which are becoming bigger and bigger issues.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity

This online community allows people with disabilities to contact from all over the world. So they do not have to stay within their own geographical boundaries. This means that for communication to be successful, distance is not an issue or a barrier for members of disabledonline.com. it creates a more “speedier” way of communication and can also help promote unity between disabled member of the community around the world.


Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.

A person with a disability that affects their ability to access a computer and the internet will have trouble accessing disabledonline.com. Although it does help provide support and a sense of individuality, it does not give the user the sense of the face to face communication that is often more successful in the development of themselves as individuals.