Area:
Medical. The virtual community is to cater to a community of pediatricians that
don’t share a common workplace and may or may not share a same geographic
location.
Aims: The
main goal for the community is to have a place where the pediatricians can
share information, knowledge and experiences. This should include but not be
limited to:
Technologies:
The technologies that are to be proposed depend on the level of urgency and
type of communication needed. Nevertheless, it can be summarized into a mix of
synchronous and asynchronous communication such as e-mail, bulletin boards and
interactive instant messaging systems and/or chats. Another tool for
implementing services will be the use of hyperlinks.
1)Treatment
Discussions: Records should be kept and as such, recorded chats, bulletin
boards and an email list could all be ways of assessing this need. Emails and
bulletin boards (or other asynchronous technologies) would serve non urgent
cases while a synchronous technology such as a chat would be needed to deal
with more urgent cases where response time should be immediate.
2)Diagnosis
Discussions: As diagnosis needs don’t turn to be urgent and its focus is on
learning, recorded email and bulletin boards should suffice the needs of the
community.
3)Patient and
Hospital Information: The nature of these services would require file transfer
technology (such as FTP) and one to one
synchronous communication. Security could prove to be an issue as well and
technologies such as secure transactions could be implemented.
4)News: News
should be offered in bulletin board or portal format where members can browse
through and read. They should hold hyperlinks to the institutions offering the
new courses or more information on medicines or equipments as well. News should
fuel discussion and serve as resources to be consulted only.
Other aspects
to take into account are the growth potential of the community. Should the
community prosper in its aim, we could be seeing the need to cater to video
conferences.
All this
would depend on the infrastructure of both the community and the individual
members. The server should have capabilities to deal with the traffic expected
of the community and allow for growth. Network capabilities should also offer a
bandwidth sufficient to support the numerous connections. Individual clients
would depend on their capabilities and their needs of the community. Groupware
might not be necessary for a web only application but as the community grows,
it might prove advantageous to manufacture software that specifically cater to
the members’ needs. With this, issues such as support and awareness could be
catered to the specific needs of the community.
Sociability
and Cultural Aspects: Cultural and spiritual aspects should be dealt with
utmost care and tolerance. Diverse backgrounds and nationalities are expected
and as such different points of views should be tolerated. Nevertheless a
standardized form of communication and language should be recommended (such as
English). Social aspects such as connectedness should promote interest in their
members, mainly be keeping information up to date and the community services
working. Other sociability aspects should include:
Development
Plan: The plan that should be followed to design, implement and maintain the
virtual community is composed of four steps.
1)Analysis
Analysis
commences by reviewing the needs and requirements of the community’s potential
users, the tasks they will be performing and those that the managers of the
community wish to offer. These requirements must be concretely stated and
clearly understood. Once that is done, processes should be modeled with tools
like data flow diagrams or state diagrams.
2)Design
The design
phase is further subdivided in two. The first step is to take the diagrams from
the previous phase and construct a system out of it, planning for inputs and
outputs and gearing it towards facilitating coding. Tools such as UTML class
diagrams and other useful tools could prove quite helpful at this stage. Once
the conceptual design is finished a detailed design could be made into the
actual design of the user interface. By now it should have been decided if the
community will be browser based or on groupware.
3)Implementation
Implementing
the prototype should focus on quality coding and building on the blocks
previously created in the steps mentioned before. GUI support is a must as text
based systems don’t offer the flexibility needed to support full awareness and
a sense of being a portal for the members. It should also be built for easy
maintenance, include portability and allow room for growth.
4)Maintenance
Maintenance
itself is to be divided in two areas. The first one being the technical aspect.
Room should have been built for the central moderator to be able to fix “bugs”
on the spot or be able to fix minor problems such as broken links or lost
passwords. Though, in coding many of these things should be avoided, it is
better to prepare for any errors than to assume perfection. The second area
relates to “customer” satisfaction. Members should be able to have an easy
access to contact with the central moderator and the freedom to give feedback
on the design, functionality and be able to comment on problems with other
members. The member, nevertheless, should not be the only one to initiate this
but as well, systematic surveys, benchmarking and evaluation should be done on
the community. Quality is a cycle and as such, maintenance is a process to be
done over and over.
Research
Opportunities: Three key questions can be assessed and researched, not only in
what respects to the community’s growth but on its impact on the “real life”
pediatrician community. It’s success should be reflected in improved treatment
and faster diagnosis reaching out to benefit the local community. With this
focus, the idea behind the community will prove fulfilled and a good will be
done for humanity.
1)Has use of
the community helped in more correct diagnosis?
2)Has use of
the community helped in more appropriate treatments to ailments?
3)Has the
information gained in the community been useful in the professional growth and
education of the community?
-Assumptions:
It is assumed, that the pediatricians are using the community for personal
growth. It is also assumed that the term “growth” goes beyond number of members
but to the community’s actual impact on the individual and society.
-Method for
Data Collection: The hypotheses will be tested by means of surveys. These surveys
will be constructed to asses key points (such as their application of the info
taken from their group in professional practice) and will include numerical
responses and simple Yes/No. Before the survey, a numerical study should be
made to conclude a sample size and an acceptable error margin. As an aide,
testimonial collection could prove beneficial, specially after processing the
original data.
-Data
Analyis: The basic strategy for data analysis will be the use of statistics. As
the surveys constructed will be built around the fact, it should be simple to
come up with percentages of Yes versus No, histograms and other numerical
proofs. If presented with the need for material proof, the data can be mined to
access success stories and follow up studies of such cases could be presented.
-Legal
Concerns: Surveys should not be forced, only encouraged. Privacy should go
beyond protecting the pediatricians participating but also cater to the needs
of the individual patients. Disclaimers and thorough explanations of the
research should be presented as part of the survey or placed where it can be
consulted at any time.
References:
Whitten,
Jeffrey, Bentley, Lonnie and Dittman, Kevin. Systems Analysis and Design
Methods. Mc Graw Hill Irwin: Sydney, 5th Edition, 2001.
Preece, J. Online
Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociablity. John Wiley &
Sons: Chichester, 2000.
Salkind, Neil
J. Exploring Research. Prentice Hall: Mexico City, 4th
Edition, 1999.