ABSTRACT

With the availability of the Internet, virtual communities are proliferating at an unprecedented rate. Indepth understanding of virtual community dynamics can help us to address critical organizational and information systems issues such as communities-of-practice, virtual collaboration, and knowledge management. The biggest challenge in fostering a virtual community is the supply of knowledge through services and the willingness to share knowledge with other members. This paper integrates the Service Oriented Architecture and Agent Based Theory to construct a Reinforced Concrete design (RCD) model for Reinforced Concrete Analysts and Designers in virtual communities. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the sharing of knowledge in virtual community from the perspective of RCD serviceability service. Results confirm that RC Designers will share knowledge; if their perceive benefit exceed the cost of their sharing behaviour. This study is useful for the developers of Service oriented Applications for virtual communities to insight into knowledge sharing in cyberspace for RCD.