New journal: International Journal of Web based Communities

In the weblog of inter-net-viewer, I read an announcement of a new journal "International Journal of Web Based Communities". It says:

The IJWBC is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It offers state of the art to practitioners such as communication managers, officers of public information services, web masters and of course those who are responsible for online communities. Its mission is to publish and integrate scientific results and act as a catalyst to the rapidly developing culture of web communities.

It is increasingly important for our culture to bring people together and to promote dynamics in professional organisations, mutual understanding, learning and harmony. Creating ''virtual communities'' is one major way to do this. IJWBC will publish scientifically proven methods on how to organise and moderate WWW-based communities. These communities do not limit participants to particular locations – the international and multicultural dimension is a most challenging one. Good WWW communities undergo a continuous evolution and adapt to the changing world. The nature of these communities can be corporate, scientific, social or educational. Pragmatic questions which need to be addressed include: Which software tools are the most appropriate and how should they be used? How to promote your community so that new members can find it? How to protect the members' privacy? How to moderate discussions and how to provide information that people can use? How to create and maintain a sense of trust and commitment among the members?

In addition, sociology, education, communication and philosophy issues are addressed as the main disciplines reflected in building WWW-based communities, although critical theories on societies and post-modernism are also relevant starting points. New and imminent technologies will be discussed.

Executive editor is Piet Kommers, a former colleague of me from the University of Twente, The Netherlands. Jenny Preece is, amongst other, member of the editorial board.

Comments

[Sybilla]

Thanks for mentioning the article and the journal. I would have appreciated a trackback though,... nice to keep track of things. :)

[Carla]

Sybilla, I found that the trackback doesn't seem to work properly. I mailed TypePad about it and they agreed that the functionality is not there.