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VERSION:2.0
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BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Structuring Online Communities
DTSTART:20230111T140000
DTEND:20230111T150000
DTSTAMP:20260407T021154Z
UID:b9be0d33c3a8e74c8ccf137efd453adf65d0e3aefd28642e772c88ac
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Neha Sharma\nAbstract:\nOnline Question and Answer communi
 ties were started to supplement customer support services. In contrast to 
 conventional customer support\, users in online communities can post quest
 ions\, and other users with more experience or knowledge can answer these 
 questions. Generally\, question answerers get rewards and visibility in th
 e community while the askers gain knowledge if their questions get answere
 d. We model the community as a multistage stochastic game where users have
  different skill levels. We study how users decide to join\, leave\, and p
 articipate in these communities.\nWe link the user participation decisions
  to the underlying network structure of the community. Theoretically\, we 
 show that under most parameters\, only a core-periphery network structure 
 can emerge in such communities. This network structure has been empiricall
 y observed in most online communities. Finally\, we explore the cost of as
 king questions as a lever that a community designer can use to balance use
 r participation and the community’s efficiency in providing answers to u
 sers’ questions. We find that increasing the cost of asking questions in
  the community improves the proportion of askers that get answers to their
  questions. This results in higher user satisfaction. However\, a higher a
 sking cost lowers the participation level in the community. This trade-off
  between participation and community efficiency results in non-monotonicit
 y in the number of users in the community with the participation cost. The
  communities typically operationalize higher asking costs by either direct
 ly penalizing question-asking activity or setting up stricter guidelines f
 or questions to be answered. We find that increasing the cost of asking is
  not always bad for the community. A higher asking cost can lead to an inc
 rease in the number of users in the community. We also discuss how the exi
 stence of low-knowledge users in the community (and not necessarily the hi
 gh-knowledge users) is essential to the survival of such communities.\n\nB
 io: I am a doctoral candidate in Operations Management at Kellogg School o
 f Management. I am on the 2022-2023 job market. I am very fortunate to be 
 advised by Prof. Achal Bassamboo\, Prof. Gad Allon\, and Prof. Milind So
 honi. My research focuses on problems in service operations with novel bus
 iness models and strategic agents. I have worked on designing knowledge-sh
 aring platforms where there is no clear separation between consumers and p
 roducers (for instance\, Question and Answer communities) and online asset
 -sharing platforms for urban mobility where asset-owners are scarce (for e
 xample\, highly regulated or developing economies). I enjoy using data to 
 support and build analytical models\, I have been collaborating with multi
 ple firms to answer relevant problems with immense potential for social im
 pact.\n\n 
LOCATION:ODY 4 03 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==ODY%204%2003
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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