Robin Jeffries
Sun Microsystems

Email: robin.jeffries@Eng.Sun.COM

Lee Sproull

Boston University

Email: lsproull@bu.edu

Sara Kiesler

Carnegie Mellon University

Email: kiesler@andrew.cmu.edu

Systers is an informal online community for technical women. The authors are conducting a multifaceted program of empirical research with systers members. The purpose of the work is to understand and to improve systers’ online resources for supporting technical women as individuals and as a community. At the workshop, we will describe our methods of study, present data from an initial cross sectional survey, and discuss some of the social and technical issues involved in planning for the system.

Systers began in 1987 as a small mailing list for women in "systems," thus the name "systers." There are now over 2500 systers in 25 countries with diverse interests and varying access to computer resources. This research is a partnership with the systers membership aimed at understanding how online resources and organization can best support all the diverse individual members of the systers community and the community as a whole. An initial random sample cross-sectional survey had the purpose of understanding who systers are, how they perceive the online services and interactions of current-day systers, and what changes they would like to see in the online community. We are also conducting online focus groups with volunteer systers, a longitudinal study of new subscribers, and a study of those who leave systers.

First, we are interested in solving some specific problems faced by systers, as a large distributed online community. How do you create an online system that helps people meet others without requiring that they know in advance whom they would like to meet? How does a large online community talk together? How should an online community with many subsets of interests organize itself? How does it keep people "in the know" about the community yet not overwhelm them with news they don’t want?

Second, we are interested in how systers affects individual members over the long run. Who benefits? Who doesn’t? In what ways? How can systers do the most good?

The idea of online communities has evolved as these communities have proliferated. Yet we still do not understand some very basic questions, such as how online communities differ psychologically and socially from real world groups, how online communities best survive when they become very large and diverse. Also, each of us must resolve pressures on our attentional resources in an age of so many rich possibilities for community.

The Institute for Women and Technology, http://www.parc.xerox.com/oct/projects/iwt.org/

Jeffries, R., Berlin, L. M., O’Day, V. L., Paepcke, A., & Wharton, C. ( 1993). Where Did You Put It? Issues in the Design and Use of a Group Memory. Proceedings of ACM INTERCHI'93: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, p.23-30.

Sproull, L. & Kiesler, S. (1991). Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Galagher, J., Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1998). Legitimacy, authority, and community in electronic support groups. Written Communication, 15, 493-530.

Kiesler, S. (ed.) (1997) Culture of the Internet, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. (paperback) (In particular see chapter by Faraj & Sproull.)