Outline

Overview

Most businesses and institutions are building online communities in order to strategically engage their workers, audiences, consumers or publics. Community management is a critical aspect of communications, market intelligence, marketing and innovation. This unit investigates how those communities are scoped, fostered, facilitated, and governed to provide mutual benefit for host organisations and members. The unit will develop theoretical knowledge of community dynamics, deployment, ethics and governance, and practical skills in strategy, analysis, moderation and facilitation. Students will evaluate existing communities and create strategic plans for community development.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Media and Communications
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	None
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	None
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Venessa Paech, venessa.paech@sydney.edu.au

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Assignment	Community strategy Long form written	25%	Week 04 Due date: 04 Feb 2022 at 23:59	1300 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Risk analysis and governance documentation Long form written	25%	Week 05 Due date: 11 Feb 2022 at 23:59	1200 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Online community: practical and reflection In class presentation week 6 and report due on Friday	40%	Week 06 Due date: 25 Feb 2022 at 23:59	2000 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Participation in discussion online Posts on discussion platforms	10%	Week 06 Due date: 25 Feb 2022 at 23:59	Ongoing through semester
Outcomes assessed:

Assessment summary

See Canvas for further details.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100
Distinction	75 - 84
Credit	65 - 74
Pass	50 - 64
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see guide to grades.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

You may only use generative AI and automated writing tools in assessment tasks if you are permitted to by your unit coordinator. If you do use these tools, you must acknowledge this in your work, either in a footnote or an acknowledgement section. The assessment instructions or unit outline will give guidance of the types of tools that are permitted and how the tools should be used.

Your final submitted work must be your own, original work. You must acknowledge any use of generative AI tools that have been used in the assessment, and any material that forms part of your submission must be appropriately referenced. For guidance on how to acknowledge the use of AI, please refer to the AI in Education Canvas site.

The unapproved use of these tools or unacknowledged use will be considered a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy and penalties may apply.

Studiosity is permitted unless otherwise indicated by the unit coordinator. The use of this service must be acknowledged in your submission as detailed on the Learning Hub’s Canvas page.

Outside assessment tasks, generative AI tools may be used to support your learning. The AI in Education Canvas site contains a number of productive ways that students are using AI to improve their learning.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Orientation to online community: 5 daily seminars Monday - Friday 10-5pm	Seminar (20 hr)
Week 02	1. Strategy and community design: online reading, activities and discussion; 2. Commence work with external online community.	Online class (3 hr)
Week 03	1. Engagement: online reading, activities and discussion; 2. External online community tasks	Online class (3 hr)
Week 04	1. Measurement: online reading, activities and discussion; 2. External online community tasks	Online class (3 hr)
Week 05	1. Ethics and governance: online reading, activities and discussion; 2. External online community tasks	Online class (3 hr)
Week 06	1. Future of community management: online discussion, activities and assignment preparation; 2. External online community tasks.	Seminar (6 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.
Lecture recording: In this unit, MECO6942, the first week’s lectures and tutorials will not be recorded. Attendance is mandatory.
Preparation: Students should commit to spend approximately three hours’ preparation time (reading, studying, homework, essays, etc.) for every hour of scheduled instruction.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Recommended books

Millington, R., & author. (2012). Buzzing communities : how to build bigger, better, and more active online communities. Place of publication not identified: Feverbee.

Millington, R., & author. (2018). The indispensable community : why some brand communities thrive when others perish. United States: FeverBee.

Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the Internet: platforms, content moderation and the hidden decisions that shape social media. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Week 1 – Orientation to online community

Rheingold, H. (2000) Introduction, In The Virtual Community, (pp xv-xxxii). MIT Press.

Coate, J. (1998, January 1). Cyberspace innkeeping: building online community. Retrieved 20 December 2018, from John Coate - Cyberspace innkeeping: building online community website: http://idallen.com/ncf/innkeeping.html

W1 Day 2 - Community strategy, design and culture

Anderson, K. (2017) ‘Building Healthy Online Communities — An Interview with Rachel Happe’, The Scholarly Kitchen, https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/10/24/building-healthy-online-communities-interview-rachel- happe

Fiedler, M., & Sarstedt, M. (2014). Influence of community design on user behaviors in online communities. Journal of Business Research, 67(11), 2258–2268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2014.06.014

W1 Day 3 - Engagement and measurement

Millington, R. (2018). The engagement trap. In The indispensable community : why some brand communities thrive when others perish (pp. 101–115). Feverbee.

Jones, C.M. and Vogl, C. (2020) ‘Motivating and Encouraging Participation’, Chapter 10 (pp 155-178) in Building Brand Communities. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

W1 Day 4 - Ethics and governance

Phillips, W. (2015). Chapter 2 Defining terms: the Origins and Evolution of Subcultural Trolling. In This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, (pp.15-26). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Beckett, J. (2018). ‘We need to talk about the mental health of content moderators’, The Conversation. September 27. http://theconversation.com/we-need-to-talk-about-the-mental-health-of-content-moderators- 103830

Week 2 - Strategy and community design

McCosker, A., & Hartup, M. (2018). Turning to online peer forums for suicide and self-harm support: ‘It does help having you guys’ (pp. 1–31). Melbourne: beyondblue and Swinburne Social Innovation Research Institute.

Bussgang, J. and Bacon, J.W (2020) ‘When Community Becomes Your Competitive Advantage, Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2020/01/when-community-becomes-your-competitive-advantage

Week 3 - Engagement

Panek, E., Hollenbach, C., Yang, J., & Rhodes, T. (2018). The Effects of Group Size and Time on the Formation of Online Communities: Evidence from Reddit. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118815908

Week 4 - Measurement

Millington, R. (2012). Return on investment. In Buzzing communities: how to build bigger, better, and more active online communities. (pp. 193–220). Feverbee.

Cothrel, J. P. (2000). Measuring the success of an online community. Strategy & Leadership, 28(2), 17–21. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570010341609

Week 5 - Ethics and governance

Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the internet: platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. New Haven: Yale University Press. NOTE: Please read chp 1, pp. 27-29, and Chp.5

Tran, V. (2020) ‘Ethical community management in a struggling world’, Games Industry Biz. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-04-15-ethical-community-management-in-a-struggling-world

Week 6 - Future of community management

Paech, V. (2017, November 22). Automation, AI and community management: the soul in our new machines. Retrieved 20 December 2018, from Marketing website: https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-c/opinion-paech-community-management/

Hutchinson, J. (2017). Algorithmic culture and cultural intermediation. In Cultural Intermediaries: Audience Participation in Media Organisations. (pp. 201-220) Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Watch: The Role of Community Management in the Web 3.0 Space | Cooper Turley, Tiffany Zhong, David Spinks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynxWllmLJSM

Bonus listening: Community At Work podcast - https://communityatwork.podbean.com/

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. demonstrate knowledge of online communities, their applications and forms of management
LO2. demonstrate developed online community activation and building strategies
LO3. analyse and report on online community status, risk management and health
LO4. establish and manage ethical governance planning to support and protect communities and host organisations.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

Thanks to July's students who gave us valuable feedback on this unit. We have increased tutorial time week 2-5, and updated assessment requirements.

Additional information

Work, health and safety

Please notify your unit coordinator and lecturer if you are viewing any inappropriate or distressing content, abuse or harassment in the online communities you are participating in. We can advise you on the best strategies for documenting, reporting and addressing this material.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Work, health and safety

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

MECO6942: Managing Social Media Communities

Intensive February, 2022 [Block mode] - Remote

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Work, health and safety

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect