Essential ingredients for online community

For me the three essential ingredients for a successful online community would be purpose, motivation and trust.
Taking them in the order statedPurpose behind the existence of the community is essential as it affects so many other elements within the community. It helps determine the tools for use, how they are applied and the time, information and expertise used to support the community (White,N ). Too many times technology is implemented with no purpose and is then labelled as a solution looking for a problem.

Motivation is an absolutely pivotal point as it gets community members through the early stages of use of hardware and software where problems can occur.(Salmon) during the first year of study with the OU online difficulties with the incompatibility of my laptop and their CD Rom I almost drop kicked the laptop out the window through frustration and would cheerfully have given up such were the problems. It was sheer motivation and determination to success with the course that ensured I continued to contribute online. I was forced to look for local resolutions to such issues namely being nice to a techie friend of mine and also to being open to learning about how to solve problems myself. Reynolds et al point out the same indicating that positive motivation can lead to self driven, self directed efforts to solve problems, master new skills and contribute ideas to colleagues.

Trust
Online participation can feel like a solitary experience especially if it involves distance learning. The element that removes that feeling of isolation is the help and support received from others within the online community. To provide comment and to support others online requires trust (Bradshaw et al). The tacit cues we use to determine anothers propensity to be trustworthy such as tone of voice, body language and visual contact are denied (in the most part) online. Commiting your thoughts and learing processes to text where others can view it normally feels uncomfortable unless you trust the community to behave in a professional manner. that is not to say that all must agree with all points raised indeed it is the socratic dialogue entered into between participants that leads to co-construction of knowledge.