Best Practices for Online Community Building
limiting the size and lifespan of discussion groups to foster commitment and accountability, highlighting member bio's and introductions, as well as featuring high-quality exchanges drawn from all groups.

Introductions help people take ownership of the fact that their opinions, beliefs and views relate directly, and vividly, to who they are, and what their experiences have been.

Featured Discussions - highlighting quality discussions, and allowing participants to vote on good content. it's based on the idea of asking/inspiring people to be their best selves, and providing all kinds of positive reinforcement when they act in that spirit. It's "modeling" and incentive.
from Lertzman, R. Interview with Marc Weiss, Web Lab. in Online Community Report,
http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/features/weiss/

Best Practices for Online Community Building
Maintaining a discussion requires vigilance, nurturance, and novelty.

Stoloff, D. (2002). Observations on Developing a Virtual Community. from http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/stolofvc.htm

Best Practices for Online Community Building
factors which have been most critical to success have been establishing effective:
Leadership -
Relationships
Environment

good leadership provides clear goals for group, clear path to achieve goals, involving members in determining goals, effective facilitation, excellent interpersonal skills. leadership can be shared.

building strong relationships, which requires honesty, openness, respect, integrity in order to build trust between members

Ideal features of a community include:

Identification of the author, time, topic and keywords for each contribution;

Capacity to edit contributions for a nominated period;

Search facilities based on forum, keywords, text, date ranges and authors;

Capacity to contribute files / documents and images to supplement text;

Facilities to organise / index these supplementary objects;

Ability to determine what members had last read in order to determine whether they have had a chance to read recent contributions;

Tools for monitoring participation, enabling leaders to contact those who withdraw to seek feedback and encourage participation;

Tools for survey, polls, or other mechanisms for determining opinions or making decision

from Best Practice in Community Building and Information Discovery,
http://www.educationau.edu.au/globalsummit/papers/rcrompton.htm

Best Practices for Online Community Building
4 crucial elements of a successful community of practice:
establishment of social capital, creation of multiple weak ties between individuals, and a strong sense of place, specific and challenging goal.

from Lester, J. (2003). Integrating and Evolving a Mob: The Growth of a Smart Mob
into a Wireless Community of Practice

Best Practices for Online Community Building

1. Personal interaction - personal exchange vital in order to create identity, understanding, support Caleb J. Clark, prof at San Diego State University, in Thought & Action, Fall 2002

2. interaction is key component of distance education and that is a factor in helping students to think critically:

3. building of online resources

4. students be allowed to show their expertise, but the teacher can and should ask for help from students as well. learning as 2-way street.
All of the above from Beck, E. 2002. "The Mysterious Territory of Distance Learning.? from NEA Higher Education J.