Towards an evaluation methodology for the development of research-oriented virtual communities

This paper is part of a case study of collaborative environment use and part of a proposition for methodological approach for evaluating virtual environments based on the findings from that case study. We review the literature on evaluating collaborative environments and we also report on a usability study carried out on a research oriented virtual community. The report includes a cluster analysis of the questionnaire results and the use of those results in profiling user attitudes. We propose that this type of differential cluster analysis should be used in the future to identify people who are generally better able to make discriminating judgements, and also to identify people who are able to analyse the usability of different components of an environment rather than just the overall environment.