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Virtual Communities – A Virtual Treasure Trove for End-User Developers

Henri Korvela, Virtual Communities – A Virtual Treasure Trove for End-User Developers. TUCS Dissertations 174. 2014.

Abstract:

End-user development is a very common but often largely overlooked
phenomenon in information systems research and practice. End-user
development means that regular people, the end-users of software, and not
professional developers are doing software development. A large number of
people are directly or indirectly impacted by the results of these non-professional
development activities. The numbers of users performing end-user development
activities are difficult to ascertain precisely. But it is very large, and still
growing. Computer adoption is growing towards 100% and many new types of
computational devices are continually introduced. In addition, other devices not
previously programmable are becoming so. This means that, at this very
moment, hundreds of millions of people are likely struggling with development
problems. Furthermore, software itself is continually being adapted for more
flexibility, enabling users to change the behaviour of their software themselves.
New software and services are helping to transform users from consumers to
producers. Much of this is now found on-line.
The problem for the end-user developer is that little of this development is
supported by anyone. Often organisations do not notice end-user development
and consequently do not provide support for it, or are equipped to be able to do
so. Many end-user developers do not belong to any organisation at all. Also, the
end-user development process may be aggravating the problem. End-users are
usually not really committed to the development process, which tends to be more
iterative and ad hoc. This means support becomes a distant third behind getting
the job done and figuring out the development issues to get the job done.
Sometimes the software itself may exacerbate the issue by simplifying the
development process, deemphasising the difficulty of the task being undertaken.
On-line support could be the lifeline the end-user developer needs. Going online
one can find all the knowledge one could ever need. However, that does still
not help the end-user apply this information or knowledge in practice. A virtual
community, through its ability to adopt the end-user’s specific context, could
surmount this final obstacle.
This thesis explores the concept of end-user development and how it could be
supported through on-line sources, in particular virtual communities, which it is
argued here, seem to fit the end-user developer’s needs very well. The
experiences of real end-user developers and prior literature were used in this
process. Emphasis has been on those end-user developers, e.g. small business
owners, who may have literally nowhere to turn to for support
Adopting the viewpoint of the end-user developer the thesis examines the
question of how an end-user could use a virtual community effectively,
improving the results of the support process. Assuming the common situation
where the demand for support outstrips the supply.

BibTeX entry:

@PHDTHESIS{phdKorvela_Henri14a,
  title = {Virtual Communities – A Virtual Treasure Trove for End-User Developers},
  author = {Korvela, Henri},
  number = {174},
  series = {TUCS Dissertations},
  year = {2014},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): Data Mining and Knowledge Management Laboratory

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