Exploring the adoption of online discussion forums for knowledge sharing and social relations among virtual communities

Author

Seliaman, Mohamed E.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Inf. Syst., King Faisal Univ., Hufof, Saudi Arabia

fYear

2013

fDate

22-24 June 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

5

Abstract

This paper investigates the adoption and use of online discussion forums by Sudanese virtual communities located in different places in the world. For this purpose, an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is proposed to analyze the users´ adoption of online discussion forums for sharing knowledge and social relations. A survey questionnaire is administered to the users of Sudanese-Online.com: one popular online Sudanese discussion forum. Results from preliminary analysis show that social influence and online social skills influence users´ acceptance of online discussion forums for social relations and knowledge sharing.

Keywords

Internet; Sudanese virtual communities; Sudanese-Online.com; TAM; knowledge sharing; online Sudanese discussion forum; online social skills influence user acceptance; social relations; technology acceptance model; Blogs; Communities; Correlation; Discussion forums; Educational institutions; Information systems; Tin; Online discussion forums; TAM; knowledge sharing; social relations; user adoption;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Computer and Information Technology (WCCIT), 2013 World Congress on

Conference_Location

Sousse

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-0460-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCCIT.2013.6618691

Filename

6618691