Co-Producing Safety: Social Affiliation, Technical Infrastructure, and Trust on a University Peer-to-Peer Platform 11 views

Trust in digital systems often feels natural, yet it is carefully shaped by design decisions that users may not fully recognize. My capstone project focuses on building Forma, a peer to peer platform that connects University of Virginia students with on campus service providers. I undertook this project to solve the problem of students relying on scattered and informal ways to find services by creating a structured and accessible platform. My STS research paper examines how safety and trust are constructed on peer to peer platforms like Forma. I pursued this research to understand how users interpret platform design and how these interpretations shape their sense of security. The two projects are directly connected because the technical system I built creates the conditions that my STS research analyzes. Together they show that engineering decisions do not only produce functionality but also shape how users perceive trust, risk, and responsibility. My capstone project contributes to solving the problem of inefficient and unstructured service exchange within a university environment. Many students rely on word of mouth or informal channels to find services, which limits access and reduces trust. Forma addresses this by creating a centralized platform where providers can list services and customers can book them smoothly. The system is built using a full stack architecture with a React frontend, a Django backend, and a PostgreSQL database. Authentication is handled through university login to restrict access to verified students. The platform supports booking, availability management, and secure file uploads. These design choices aim to improve usability while maintaining a controlled environment that encourages participation. The overall conclusion of my capstone project is that a closed platform based on shared institutional identity can improve accessibility and encourage engagement. Users benefit from a streamlined system that makes it easier to find and offer services. However, the project also reveals limitations. Relying primarily on university authentication creates a sense of trust but does not fully address safety concerns. The system lacks formal safeguards such as rating systems or verification layers beyond login. This highlights that technical solutions can improve efficiency but may not fully resolve issues related to trust and risk. My STS research asks how peer to peer platforms like Forma construct safety through both technical design and social affiliation, and how this affects user risk. This question is significant because digital platforms increasingly rely on trust between strangers, yet the mechanisms behind that trust are not always transparent. I use a sociotechnical approach grounded in the Social Construction of Technology framework and the concept of co production. My methodology involves analyzing Forma as a design artifact, examining its architecture and features, and interpreting how different user groups are likely to understand them. This approach allows me to explore how meaning and perception shape the experience of safety rather than focusing only on technical functionality. The findings of my STS research show that safety on Forma is not a fixed technical feature but a socially constructed outcome. Users interpret university affiliation as a signal of trustworthiness, even though the platform provides limited formal protections. This creates a gap between perceived safety and actual protection. Evidence from platform design and existing literature shows that shared identity can increase trust while also leading users to underestimate risk. As a result, responsibility for safety shifts toward individual users rather than the system itself. The conclusion is that platforms like Forma co produce safety through the interaction between design and user interpretation. This has important implications for engineers, as it shows that building systems also means shaping how people understand and navigate risk.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Sociotechnical Systems; Trust in Peer-to-Peer Platforms; Social Affiliation; Co-Production of Technology; Platform Safety; University-Based Platforms; Risk Perception

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Technical Advisor: Derrick Stone STS Advisor: Pedro Augusto P. Francisco Technical Team Members: Shoug Alharbi

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-07