Building a virtual research and teaching community

Abstract

The Sloan Work and Family Research Network was created to provide web-based resources to individuals interested in work–family studies. The Network's website includes a database that contains over 5,000 citations/annotations of work–family research, a range of teaching resources for faculty and a newsletter. Experiences with the implementation of this project offer opportunities to consider the importance of devising community-building strategies for virtual networks that function as part of the ‘invisible college’.

La red de investigaciones del trabajo y la familia se inicio para proveer recursos del Web para personas interesados en los estudios de la relación entre el trabajo y la familia. El sitio Web de la Red incluye una base de datos con más que 5,000 referencias de investigaciones sobre el trabajo y la familia, una variedad de recursos educativos para la facultad universitaria, y un boletín de noticias. Experimentos en la implementación de este proyecto ofrecen oportunidades de considerar la importancia de perfilar estrategias para construir unas redes virtuales que funcionen como parte de la ‘universidad invisible’.

Keywords:

• community
• network
• virtual community

Notes

Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes is an assistant professor at the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Dr Pitt-Catsouphes is currently a co-principal investigator of the study, ‘Understanding the First Job: Nurturing Families’, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This investigation is examining how working parents with pre-teen children use resources at home, work and in the community to manage their work–family responsibilities. Information is being gathered from the parents as well as from the children. Address: 308 McGuinn Hall, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. [email: [email protected]]

The Sloan Work–Family Researchers Electronic Network is a project supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes is a co-principal investigator with Bradley Googins, also of Boston College. The website for the project can be accessed at: www.bc.edu/wfnetwork

We are grateful to the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Kathleen Christensen, the Director of the Workplace, Workforce and Working Families Program at the Sloan Foundation.

The work–family area of study includes a broad range of topics that pertain to the experiences of individuals, families and social institutions (such as the workplace and community) with regard to people's work and family roles and responsibilities.

The term ‘unique visitors’ actually refers to computer terminals. During a specified time period, such as a month, a particular computer terminal is counted just once as a unique visitor. Therefore, if individuals using 10 different computers log onto a website once during a month, the tally of unique visitors is ‘10’. If these same individuals log on 40 times each, the tally of unique visitors still remains ‘10’.

Amy Jo Kim (2000), in her book Community building on the Web: Secret strategies for successful online communities, provides strategic advice for creating virtual communities and supporting community-minded interactions among the community members.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes

Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes is an assistant professor at the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Dr Pitt-Catsouphes is currently a co-principal investigator of the study, ‘Understanding the First Job: Nurturing Families’, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This investigation is examining how working parents with pre-teen children use resources at home, work and in the community to manage their work–family responsibilities. Information is being gathered from the parents as well as from the children. Address: 308 McGuinn Hall, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. [email: [email protected]]