Designed for Good: Community Well-Being Oriented Online Databases for Youth - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 289

Chapter 12
Designed for Good: Community Well-Being
Oriented Online Databases for Youth

S. Vodanovich, M. Rohde, and D. Sundaram

Abstract Community-built databases have been established for diverse groups
and communities. While traditional community-built databases are driven by a
professional and technically-oriented audience, the rise of community-built data-
bases shaped by the Net Generation has its own particular problems and issues.
We begin this chapter with a definition of the concept of well-being for youth as
well as the developmental processes that lead toward well-being. Next, we discuss
the problems, issues, challenges and requirements for positive well-being that
may arise in the context of community-built databases. We then propose concep-
tual and design principles to mitigate these problems, address the issues and
provide mechanisms to enhance the developmental processes that lead to positive
social, emotional, moral and cognitive outcomes. We further propose a frame-
work and architecture that embody these principles in terms of four key dimen-
sions, namely: web interaction, social collaboration, semantic integration and
community governance. Finally, we conduct an exploratory implementation to
illustrate key aspects of the architecture and framework to enhance youth well-
being and support their needs.

12.1 Introduction

Youth is a period of rapid emotional, physical and intellectual change, where
young people progress from being dependent children to independent adults.
Young people who are unable to make this transition smoothly can face signif-
icant difficulties in both the short and long term. Although the vast majority of
young people are able to find all the resources they need for their health, well-
being and development within their families and living environments, some young