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Robert E. Kraut Dr. Kraut has broad interests in the design and social impact of computing and has conducted empirical research on online communities, the social impact of the internet, the design of information technology for small-group intellectual work, the communication needs of collaborating scientists, the impact of computer networks on organizations, office automation and employment quality, and technology and home-based employment. His research in specific areas examines in detail the challenges groups currently have in performing social tasks, designs new technology to meet some of these challenges, and evaluates the usefulness of the new technology. This cycle of needs assessment, technological design, and evaluation has both scholarly and applied products. His work on video systems for informal communicaiton, technology for allocating human attention and online communities follows this model. His recent research has focused on the analysis and design of online communities, such as Usentet groups, guilds in multi-player games and the editors who write Wikipedia. This research consists of empirical analysises of how they operate, such as how they socialize newcomers and they coordinate their work. He is the coauthor of Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. He also conducts research on the role that the Internet has on the interrelationships among firms, on the relationships among people and on people's psychological well-being. These networks increase the efficiency with which firms can search for or exchange information with each other, but they also shift the type of information that can easily exchanged, from personal to quantitative. The research examines how these shifts in the cost and quality of communication may influence inter-firm loyalties and market relationships. At the level of the individual, the research examines how easy access to remote and personalized information sources and communication partners changes the ties they maintain and the social support they receive from their ties. He wrote a biographical essay, Re-engineering social encounters, in 2003 for the American Psychological Association. In 1980, his research on the evolution of the human facial won a Proxmire Golden Fleece away. His biographical essay, Why bowlers smile, and Ed Diener's essay, Why Robert Kraut smiles, describe the legacy of that award.
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Bob's new books:
Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. 2012, MIT Press. Prepublication version is available here.
