Jenny Preece is Professor and Chair of Information Systems at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she teaches online communities and human-computer interaction. Prior to coming to the USA she chaired the first distance education course at the Open University in the UK. She has authored a leading text on Human-Computer Interaction and numerous other publications.

• Foreword. Preface. GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH ONLINE COMMUNITIES. Introduction. Community Tours. Sociability: Purpose, People, and Policies. Usability: Tasks, Users, and Software. Research Speaks to Practice: Interpersonal Communication. Research Speaks to Practice: Groups. DEVELOPING ONLINE COMMUNITIES. Community-Centered Development. Selecting Software. Guidelines: Sociability and Usability. Assessing Needs and Evaluating Communities. Development Case Studies. Looking to the Future. References. Index.

"provides a good balance between theory and practise"   (Software Focus, December 2001) "I like the slightly zany drawings"  "People will say I wish I'd had this book before now"."   (Computer & Education, No. 36, 2001)"…an excellent book…my best recommendations…" (Jnl of Computing and Information Technology, March 2003)