# v2 Models of community: a brief for Invest in Open Infrastructure

URL for this page: https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/community-models
Last updated: 2022-08-19

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This page is under construction. :hammer_and_wrench:

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## Introduction

This brief aims to support the work of Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) as we seek to understand and articulate the conditions that will ensure open infrastructure services are viable in the short-term and sustainable in the longer-term. 

In particular, it addresses current conceptual models describing community formation, community lifecycle, community management, and community engagement. 

It focuses on the following questions:

1. What models of community formation, community lifecycle, community management, and/or community engagement exist in practitioner or scholarly discourse?

2. How can discourse-based models of community formation, lifecycle, management, and/or engagement be applied in analysis or assessment of real-world efforts that depend on or aspire to create robust community?

IOI aims to foster an ecosystem that centers community. To achieve that, we share conceptual frameworks that would inform the development of vibrant, resilient, and community-driven services. IOI is especially interested in services that provide value to stakeholders while adhering to essential principles of true openness and accountability.

This brief includes models conceptualized by individuals and organizations from a variety of backgrounds, including sociology, marketing, and community engagement, and also emphasizes models relevant to open research and scholarly communication. IOI hopes that this diversity of models will be useful for open infrastructure service providers who are looking to develop and implement their own community model, in order to make their services more responsive to users and other stakeholders. 

## The need for a focus on community engagement in open research and scholarly communication

Our current working definition of community is aligned with Leigh Star’s use of communities of practice that are also central to the conceptualization of infrastructure. A community of practice is a “group of people joined by conventions, language, practices, and technology” and is not necessarily contained by a single spatial territory (Star, Bowker & Neumann, 2003).

IOI has developed a **service delivery model** for infrastructure that centers practices and affordances as the connection between infrastructure and community. Neither infrastructure nor community are more important than the other.

> 
Illustration: Service delivery model ([Invest in Open Infrastructure, 2022](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/COIs-additional#Community-Engagement))

IOI's 2022 demonstration pilot [Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services](https://investinopen.org/research/catalog/) examined ten projects according to several sustainability criteria. IOI researchers found that "during the interviews with project leads as well as funders and institutional budget owners, community engagement emerged as a critical element of scholarly infrastructure services." Each of the projects included in the pilot received an assessment based on three indicators: organizational commitment, community governance, and user contribution pathways.

IOI defined the indicators as follows:
- Organizational commitment, or resources that the organization commits to community engagement. 
- Evidenced by dedicated staff for community engagement, offered trainings/workshops, or grants to support community projects.
- Community governance, or mechanisms for community representatives to be involved in project or organizational governance.
- Evidenced by reserved seats for community representatives on governance boards, community oversight mechanisms.
- User contribution pathways, or mechanisms for end-users and developers to directly contribute to the community or technology.
- Evidenced by user contribution guidelines, community calls, or user forums. 

In reviewing the ten services selected for study, IOI found that three of the ten lacked "dedicated resources for community engagement" (DOI System, SciELO, Zenodo). We found two of the ten lacked "contribution guidelines, forums, or other contribution pathways" (DOI System, SciELO). And four of the ten failed to provide structure and/or community representation in governance of the service (DOI System, Mukurtu, SciELO, Zenodo).

## IOI's interest in researching and evaluating community models

As an organization, IOI wears several hats.
1. We conduct research to better understand the open infrastructure landscape.
2. We advise philanthropic funders that seek to ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector.
3. We also advise consortia and other institution-based supporters that would like to spend limited budgets as wisely and efficiently as possible.
4. We counsel values-aligned service providers in best practices for long-term sustainability.

The following assorted conceptual models may be especially useful to IOI in its role as advisor to service providers. IOI envisions this assortment to be helpful to:
- A project seeking to improve its community health: they can look to several models for inspiration on directions to pursue.
- Funders, who might want to support capacity-building programs that focus on particular areas delineated in one or more models.

They may also be used to evaluate IOI's own community health and support the improvement of IOI's community engagement work. To this end, IOI's Engagement Lead has provided their comments regarding some of the models inline, as an example of how an organzation or community could use these models to inform their community engagement practices.

## Description of community models

Studies of community appear in multiple academic disciplines. Research in psychology, for example, explores individual and group feelings of belonging and "sense of community" (Stewart & Townley, 2020). Business research addresses various angles of community in relation to financial profit-- such as consumer engagement and brand communities (Bhattacharjee, Pradhan & Swani, 2022). Public health researchers examine community in terms of its participation in research design as well as in health delivery programs (Yuan et al. 2021). Sociologists study community as a foundational element of thriving society (Putnam, 2000).

Relatedly, community practitioners have written about community from their respective fields of practice. Examples include commercial marketers (Godin), political organizers, public health program implementers, and so on.

### Assorted models

Below we share an assortment of conceptual models. We envision this resource to help inform the following use cases:
- A project seeking to improve its community health: they can look to several models for inspiration on directions to pursue.
- Funders, who might want to support capacity-building programs that focus on particular areas delineated in one or more models.

IOI aims to foster an ecosystem that centers community. These models can help projects and their communities to tailor best practices in community formation, engagement, and management to varied, particular contexts. For funders, supporting capacity-building based on ideal models can be a way to streamline spending towards high-impact programs.

Models often mentioned in scholarly and practitioner literature include the community of practice model by Wenger, community maturity model by Community Roundtable, online community lifecycle model by Millington, and Community Canvas model by Pfortmüller, Luchsinger, and Mombartz. The assorted models below reflect a sampling of commonly referenced frames for practice, and may have overlaps in their application. These models were selected based on their tractability and are intended to serve as inspiration for community-led and community-driven projects.

Each model affords customization. Time frames or community size, for example, can be adjusted as needed to fit real life contexts. The models presented below should serve as springboards rather than constraints.

#### Community of practice model (Wenger, 2002)

Swiss sociologist Etienne Wenger and his colleagues Richard McDermott and William M. Snyder define communities of practice as "groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis" (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).

For Wenger, healthy community is characterized by its aliveness, energy, and vibrancy. His model applies to any sector, not just science, education, or technology. Wenger's ideal community of practice can be realized by following seven principles:
> "1. Design for evolution.
> 2. Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives.
> 3. Invite different levels of participation.
> 4. Develop both public and private community spaces.
> 5. Focus on value.
> 6. Combine familiarity and excitement.
> 7. Create a rhythm for the community." (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> For IOI, these principles are broadly helpful. Without much understanding as to how Wenger et al intend these to be applied, we can think about the various community engagement mechanisms we have built, from our Community Oversight Council that was built to be a channel between inside and outside perspectives to some of the "private" community spaces we have built (e.g. Collaborator Calls). We can also think about whether we have practiced all these principles and where our work could be improved.

#### Community maturity model (Community Roundtable, 2009)

The Community Roundtable has developed a "community maturity model" that describes the lifecycle of a community. The four stages of formation consist of successive periods of interaction characterized by hierarchy, emergent community, community, and finally, networked interaction.

Facets of each stage include:
> - Strategy (competitive, reciprocal, cooperative, or interdependent)
> - Leadership (directive, engaged, influential, or inspiring)
> - Culture (resistant, contributive, supportive, or collaborative)
> - Community management (absent, encouraging, mentoring, or empowering)
> - Content and programming (structured, responsive, emergent, or co-created)
> - Policies and governance (rigid, restrictive, flexible, or inclusive) tools (ad hoc, defined, integrated, or adaptive)
> - Metrics and measurement (transactional, experiential, behavioral, and strategic) (Community Roundtable, 2009, 2019).

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> For IOI, we can use this to "assess" where our community is - I think we're gradually moving towards the "emergent community" stage. Although, further investigation would need to be done to the definition or criteria for each of the adjectives here (e.g. what qualifies as "emergent content" or "contributive culture"). It also begs the question of whether every community need to aim for the "networked" stage.

> 
Illustration: Community maturity model (Community Roundtable, 2009, 2019)

#### Online community 4-stage lifecycle model (Millington, 2012)

Richard Millington, a UK-based marketing professional, has written extensively on techniques for building online communities. He views community lifecycle in four stages from the point of view of the community manager. Each stage has observable, measurable markers.

> "Stage 1: Inception. The inception stage starts when you begin interacting with the target audience and ends with the community achieving a critical mass of growth and activity.

> Stage 2: Establishment. The establishment phase of the online community begins when the community has reached critical mass: the community itself generates more than 50% of growth and activity. The establishment phase ends when members are generating over 90% of growth and activity in the community.

> Stage 3: Maturity. The maturity phase of the online community lifecycle begins when members of the community are generating 90% or more of activity/growth, and there is a limited sense of community.

> Stage 4: Mitosis. The mitosis phase of the online community lifecycle begins when the community is almost entirely self-sustaining and ends when it begins to break up into smaller, more focused, online communities." (Millington, 2012)

> 
Illustration: Four Stages of the Community Lifecycle (Millington, 2012)

To foster each stage in the community's lifecycle, Millington recommends the community manager focus on eight areas of activity: business integration, content, events/activities, growth, moderation, relationships/influence, strategy, and user experience. 

> 
Illustration: Community management (Millington, 2012)

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> For IOI, this model is broadly helpful in giving us a framework to think about metrics we can measure to track community activities and growth. Although, of course, metrics should always be used with caution.

#### Community Canvas model (Pfortmüller et al., 2017)

The US- and Switzerland-based Community Canvas authors, Fabian Pfortmüller, Nico Luchsinger, and Sascha Mombartz, describe themselves as community builders and entrepreneurs, with additional specialization in design and journalism. 

The Canvas model aims to create group identity, belonging, and trust. Its framework provides actionable arenas of focus grouped into three broad sections:

> "1\. Identity: Strong communities have a clear and explicit sense of who they are, why they exist and what they stand for. These questions influence all other parts of the community and that is why Identity is the first section, but also visually at the core of the Canvas. 

> 2\. Experience: In the second part of the Canvas we explore the community from the perspective of the members: what does actually happen in it and how does it translate its Identity into concrete activities that create value for the members? 

> 3\. Structure: The third part of the Canvas focuses on the operational elements of running a community. And while many communities start enthusiastically, only few survive in the long-term. This section asks: what gives the community stability and helps it run smoothly?" (Pfortmüller et al., 2017)

Documentation describing the Community Canvas model has been translated into Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. (https://community-canvas.org/translations)

> 
Illustration: Community Canvas model (Pfortmüller et al., 2017)

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> For IOI, this model raises interesting questions about community identity, purpose, and values. The three broad sections also help facilitate exploration into how identity, purpose and value relate to member experience and structures.

#### Mozilla Framework of Open Practices (Klepel, 2017)

Mozilla is a US-based developer of open source software and community manager.

The Mozilla framework synthesizes "activation techniques to build communities." It recommends six activities for an organization to pursue when "building value together with an outside community:" gifting, creating together, soliciting ideas, learning through use, enhancing exchange, and networking interests (Mozilla, 2017).

> 
Illustration: Mozilla Framework of Open Practices (Klepel, 2017)

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> This framework helps us understand how different types of community interactions can be related to other organization goals, such as developing better products and services. Although, this framework seems to be particularly oriented towards organizations developing software and tools and having a conventional business model.

#### It Takes a Village (Arp & Forbes, February 2018)

A few years ago, Lyrasis, a US-based nonprofit, facilitated a collective-authoring process that produced the framework described in It takes a village: Open source software sustainability (Arp & Forbes, 2018). The framework consists of three lifecycle phases, along with four intermingled facets, including community engagement.

#### Educopia Community Cultivation Framework (Skinner, November 2018)

The US-based nonprofit Educopia Institute exists to build community in order to "create, share, and preserve knowledge." Its Community Cultivation guide details four stages of a community's lifecycle: formation, validation, acceleration, and transition. It also presents five "growth areas": vision, infrastructure, finances and HR, engagement, and governance.

> 
Illustration: Educopia Community Cultivation Framework (Skinner, 2018)

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> This model is particularly relevant for IOI as it focuses on organizational practices, infrastructure, and governance that enables the creation, growth and increased embeddedness of a community around the organization's work.

#### COPIM rhizomatic community (Moore & Adema, 2020)

The UK-based Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project recently explored its own path forward as an organization. It examined various conceptions of community within open scholarly communication, and collected advice from seasoned practitioners. 

Among its most notable conclusions was one aimed at initiatives with global ambition: "community definitions… require attendance to detail and difference so as to not homogenise… diverse contexts" (Moore & Adema, 2020).

In the end, COPIM landed on a model of "rhizomatic" community: 
> "...We must be open to the linkages and relationalities with other communities that themselves can be nurtured. Community thus becomes less of a standalone thing and instead takes on a more rhizomatic quality that reveals the interconnectedness of our efforts" (Moore & Adema, 2020).

#### CSCCE Community Participation Model (Woodley & Pratt, 2020)

The US-based nonprofit initiative Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement (CSCCE) conducts training and research about community that supports science.

> "The CSCCE Community Participation Model describes four modes of member engagement that can occur within a community – convey/consume, contribute, collaborate, and co-create– and one that can occur both inside and outside of it: champion. All modes may be present at once, with some members interacting in multiple modes– or a community may have member engagement that falls into only some of the modes described. The model enables the mapping of community member behaviors to programming and other infrastructural support that the community manager, convening organization, or funder may provide to the community."

> 
Illustration: CSCCE Community Participation Model (Woodley & Pratt, 2020)

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> For IOI, this model is helpful for understanding how our activities are encouraging which types of community participation.

#### SPACES model (CMX, 2022)

The commercial marketing firm Bevy.com operates CMXhub.com, a resource for professional community managers. It includes several categories common to community management, and can serve here as an illustration of the mental model some community managers in the commercial sector bring to their field of work: B2B; B2C; diversity, equity, inclusion; education; engagement; event management; gaming; getting buy-in; leadership development; metrics; moderation; monetization; nonprofit; planning and strategy; self-care; superuser/ambassador programs; tools/software/operations. (https://events.cmxhub.com/)

CMX has developed a multipart framework for community engagement that includes a model "to determine which business goal your community will be driving value towards." Facets of the so-called SPACES model include roles for community vis-a-vis a commercial product, including: customer support, ideas for product improvement, product awareness, content contribution, engagement, and marketing (CMX, 2022).

> 
Illustration: SPACES model (CMX, 2022)

IOI's engagement lead, Emmy Tsang, comments on the model:
> For IOI, this model's facets could be ways to align business and community goals. In the ideal scenario, IOI's success should be aligned and linked with our community members', and the framework here outlines some ways for our community and team to work together towards this scenario.

#### OpenStack Foundation Four opens (Vancsa, 2022)

The OpenStack Foundation (doing business as the Open Infrastructure Foundation) recently issued "four principles" for healthy open source software creation and maintenance: "open community, open design, open development, and open source." 

In this model, community is fostered most via transparency.
> "What makes a great community is that contributors believe in its mission and share the same vision and goals. The only way to achieve this is to ensure that a community’s processes, tools, and artifacts are open and available to everyone to read, understand, shape, and maintain." (Vancsa, 2022).

#### Networks for Social Impact (Cleveland and Plastrik, n.d.)

The US nonprofit Innovation Network for Communities, directed by John Cleveland and Pete Plastrik, has developed "Networks for Social Impact" as one of its several initiatives. Outputs include resources for funders of networks. 

For example, the "Assessment Tool for Network Funders and Builders" was created in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The tool-- a series of rubrics and question prompts-- empowers
> "network funders to quickly assess the strengths and weaknesses of networks they are funding or considering for funding. The tool can also be used by networks that are seeking or will be seeking funding, to identify strengths and weaknesses. The tool addresses: network design; stages of network development; network roles: member leadership and backbone support; network assessment" (Innovation Network for Communities, n.d.).

## Recommendations for the models IOI should help advance and advocate for with service providers and other stakeholders

IOI, in its role in supporting decision makers in assessing funding needs for open infrastructure projects, is interested in models of community engagement in representation utilized by infrastructure providers.

The models included in this brief represent just some of many approaches that can support this assessment process.

The unique context of each project will likely necessitate a customized adaptation of one or several models.

Funders should consider supporting projects in their self-awareness journeys by providing funds for hiring expert community consultants, short- or long-term community managers, or pilot programming. Resources that allow projects to network with other project communities would also help.

## Additional issues, concerns, questions, and areas of exploration for IOI to consider in this work

Community formation, lifecycle, engagement, and management remains understudied. There is a particular lack of scholarship about community and open scholarly infrastructure.

Further questions to be explored:

- What non-English language research exists on any aspect of the above-mentioned models of community? 
- What non-English language training events, programs, and organizations exist that focus on any aspect of the above-mentioned models of community? particularly efforts aimed at participants outside of North America and Europe.
- How are communities sustained? Models worth examining include the membership model and organizational home model used by communities such as ArchivesSpace. (https://archivesspace.org/about/faqs)
- What open infrastructure-related community activity or investment exists in the (open) metaverse? Are there emergent community models unique to the metaverse worth supporting?

## References

Arp, L. G., & Forbes, M. (2018). It takes a village: Open source software sustainability. LYRASIS. [http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12669/10](http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12669/10)

Bacon, J. (2012). The art of community. Beijing ; Sebastopol, CA : O’Reilly. [http://archive.org/details/ArtOfCommunitySecondEdition](http://archive.org/details/ArtOfCommunitySecondEdition)

Bhattacharjee, D. R., Pradhan, D., & Swani, K. (2022). Brand communities: A literature review and future research agendas using TCCM approach. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 46(1). [https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12758](https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12758)

Bilder, G., Lin, J., & Neylon, C. (2020). The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure. The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure. [https://doi.org/10.24343/C34W2H](https://doi.org/10.24343/C34W2H)

Center for Research Libraries. (2007). TRAC Metrics. Center for Research Libraries. [https://www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/digital-archives/metrics-assessing-and-certifying/trac](https://www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/digital-archives/metrics-assessing-and-certifying/trac)

CMX. (2022). The CMX Guide to Building a Community. CMX. [https://cmxhub.com/the-cmx-guide-to-building-a-community/](https://cmxhub.com/the-cmx-guide-to-building-a-community/)

Enkhbayar, A. (2021, October 6). Beyond open: Key criteria to assess open infrastructure. Invest in Open Infrastructure. https://investinopen.org/blog/criteria-to-assess-openinfra/

Innovation Network for Communities. (n.d.). Assessment Tool for Network Funders and Builders. Networks for Social Impact. [https://in4c.net/innovation-network-for-communities/networks-for-social-impact/](https://in4c.net/innovation-network-for-communities/networks-for-social-impact/)

Kennedy, M. M. (2007). Defining a Literature. Educational Researcher, 36(3), 139–147. [https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X07299197](https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X07299197)

Klepel, A. (2017, October 10). A Framework of Open Practices. Mozilla Open Innovation. [https://medium.com/mozilla-open-innovation/a-framework-of-open-practices-9a17fe1645a3](https://medium.com/mozilla-open-innovation/a-framework-of-open-practices-9a17fe1645a3)

Lakhani, K. R., & Wolf, R. G. (2003). Why hackers do what they do: Understanding motivation and effort in free/open source software projects (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. 443040). Social Science Research Network. [https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.443040](https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.443040)

Lippincott, S., & Skinner, K. (2022). FOREST Framework for Values-Driven Scholarly Communication. Educopia Institute. [https://www.nglp2022.org/forest-framework](https://www.nglp2022.org/forest-framework)

Millington, R. (2012). Buzzing communities: How to build bigger, better, and more active online communities. BookBaby. [https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11728634](https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11728634)

Moore, S., & Adema, J. (2020). COPIM Community Governance Workshop recap: Part 2 - on the meaning of community. COPIM. https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.dfe7dc68

Nosek, B. (2018, February 20). Societies’ role in improving openness and reproducibility of research. Center for Open Science. [https://osf.io/zvp8k/](https://osf.io/zvp8k/)

Pfortmüller, F., Luchsinger, N., & Mombartz, S. (2017). The community canvas guidebook: The guide to building meaningful communities. [https://community-canvas.org](https://community-canvas.org)

Skinner, K. (2018). Community cultivation: A field guide. Educopia Institute. [https://educopia.org/community-cultivation-field-guide/](https://educopia.org/community-cultivation-field-guide/)

Skinner, K., & Lippincott, S. (2020). Values and Principles Framework and Assessment Checklist. Commonplace. [https://doi.org/10.21428/6ffd8432.5175bab1](https://doi.org/10.21428/6ffd8432.5175bab1)

Star, S. L., Bowker, G., & Neumann, L. (2003). Transparency beyond the Individual Level of Scale: Convergence between Information Artifacts and Communities of Practice. In Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation. MIT Press. [https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2424.001.0001](https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2424.001.0001)

Stewart, K., & Townley, G. (2020). How Far Have we Come? An Integrative Review of the Current Literature on Sense of Community and Well-being. American Journal of Community Psychology, 66(1–2), 166–189. [https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12456](https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12456)

Thaney, K. (2021, June 25). IOI’s Strategic Plan for 2021-2024. Invest in Open Infrastructure. https://investinopen.org/about/strategic-plan-2021-2024/

UNESCO. (2021). UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (SC-2021/SANS COTE). UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949.locale=en

Vancsa, I. (2022). The Four Opens: Open Source Beyond the Code. Computer, 55(06), 81–84. [https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2022.3164124](https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2022.3164124)

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Harvard Business Review Press.

Woodley, L., & Pratt, K. (2020). The CSCCE Community Participation Model: A framework to describe member engagement and information flow in STEM communities. Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. [https://zenodo.org/record/3997802](https://zenodo.org/record/3997802)

Yuan, M., Lin, H., Wu, H., Yu, M., Tu, J., & Lü, Y. (2021). Community engagement in public health: A bibliometric mapping of global research. Archives of Public Health, 79(1), 6. [https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00525-3](https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00525-3)

## Bibliography

See IOI's ["community" sub-collection in Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/groups/4377072/invest_in_open/collections/X3VTG9TI).

## Acknowledgments

Thanks to Lou Woodley and Camille Santistevan of the Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement for teaching their Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals course, and to the CEF22W cohort. Thanks to the [Wikipedia Library](https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/) and to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the Boston Public Library, US, for taxpayer-funded access to subscription databases. And finally, many thanks to IOI colleagues Emmy Tsang, Kaitlin Thaney, Ravin Cline, Richard Dunks, Sam Moore, Saman Goudarzi, and Tania Hernandez for helpful critique and suggestions during the research and writing phases of this document.

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