Assessing communality in web-based communities: the case of spaghetti open data

In this paper, we conducted a questionnaire-based user study in the Web-based community of Spaghetti Open Data in order to assess its communality, or sense of being and contributing in building a community. This concept is addressed both in terms of degree and type with two subscales we designed for and validated in our study. We propose this tool and the related concept to analyse Web-based communities, to assess which are the most important values for them, and to which extent the communication technology adopted by their members influences the community activities and cohesion, as well as its evolution. We present the results coming from this study and discuss its generalizability and tailorability in he context of other Web-based communities.