Abstract

Although there are many research discussions on the benefits of a virtual community, little research has addressed ways or methodologies by which to sustain these virtual communities. This sustainability depends on the behaviour of the community members, in this case, their trusting behaviour as determined by the particular set of activities in the virtual community. In order for communities to be successful and sustainable, there must be mechanisms to promote trustworthy behaviour amongst members. In this research, we propose a simplistic methodology that can be used to proactively monitor members' interactions within any virtual community in term of their trusting behaviours. The purpose of this methodology is to protect the community from anyone within it who demonstrates non-compliant behaviour. The signs of non-compliant behaviour can be identified by examining the performance of agents in a certain number of interactions. The proposed methodology provides a mechanism for monitoring community members' behaviour when carrying out an interaction with other agents (i.e., by keeping track of members' performance in term of trusting behaviour). By continuously monitoring their performance, the performance monitoring report can show the agent's behaviour pattern and determine whether an agent is trustworthy or untrustworthy.