Social software for supporting interaction in a Community of Practice dedicated to e-learning (original) (raw)

Collaboration through Communities of Practice in the Digital Age

Communications in computer and information science, 2010

This paper aims to describe and explain the role of Communities of Practice (CoPs) as an informal communication mechanism in initiating, improving, and fostering collaboration in the digital age. CoPs play a critical role in the management of shared knowledge and create value for both their members and organizations. The advent of the Internet and specifically the World Wide Web (WWW) has forever changed the means of accessing and sharing data and information. With the inception of Web 2.0 technologies and social-networking sites in recent years, connections and relationships are now not only nurtured and sustained in an online environment, but also established through creating virtual communities. The authors also assert that the inception of Web 2.0 technologies and social-networking sites is a great advancement in providing a rich learning, communication, and collaborative environment, especially through the transfer of tacit knowledge that we take for granted in our face-to-face interactions. These reflections are based on personal communications with members of virtual CoPs and literature on the impact of CoPs on decision-making and knowledge management.

Communities of Practice: Going One Step Too Far?

2005

In the late 1990s, Knowledge Management (KM) and Communities of Practice (CoPs) seemed inseparable. CoPs appeared to offer the key to reversing the failure of some of the earlier technologically based attempts to manage knowledge. However, the original CoP concept was built around a very different set of principles to those put forward by the proponents of KM. This paper presents a critical review of some of the claims made for CoPs. It will address questions such as Are CoPs really suitable for use in a business setting? and Can a CoP ever be truly virtual?

Communities of practice environment

The Internet Society II: Advances in Education, Commerce & Governance, 2006

The Communities of Practice Environment (CoPE) project is an exploration of the potential for extending the social processes of the open source software movement to a wide range of other cooperative activities. The general ideas are best expressed in Steven Weber's book: The Success Of Open Source, Harvard U. Press, 2004. Obviously enough, collaboration over the Internet is a core factor in the development of open source software by diverse and distributed individuals and groups. But these developers are all IT sophisticates-could people without such expertise also form effective distributed communities of practice? We have built and deployed a platform that explores this possibility. The CoPE project provides web-based support for formal and informal groups to democratically work together and decide upon actions of common interest. The workflow in a CoPE is organized around documents with group discussion and decision making involving these documents. A CoPE can be set up and operated without requiring any IT expertise. CoPE sites have been used by groups ranging from scientific conferences and university departments to multilingual community organizations. This paper describes the CoPE system http://cope.icsi.berkeley.edu and our experience with its use.

Designing for Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice (CoPs) develop around areas that matter to people. The practices of the constituent members “reflect their understanding of what is important” (Wenger, 1998). Membership is a result of participating in and contributing to the specific field of practice. From an organisational viewpoint, it is important to recognise that CoPs are distinct to functional units, teams or networks. This paper is aimed at helping organisations who are interested in introducing a Community of Practice but are unsure of the reasons why they should do so, the steps involved and the benefits it can potentially provide. It is intended to be a practical systematic guide to help organisations plan, design and prepare for the rollout of CoPs. The subsequent sections in this paper list the areas that this author believes to be the most relevant to the overall design of the CoP. The individual design elements are supported by a practical consideration of key questions, supporting activities, and potential benefits to the organisation.

Modus operandi of Communities of Practice

Opus et Educatio, 2019

The changes in technology and the advancements of the World Wide Web have resulted in a different way in which people interact, and locate, and share information. Virtual communities connect people from different geographic regions and allow for the exchange of ideas among a broader range of professional. Communities of Practice, despite their recent conception, have gained tremendous importance in educational settings. This paper will present the types of COPs (virtual and face-to-face), pointing out the characteristics of both. It will discuss the advantages and disadvantages and propose a merged model drawing on the advantages of both. Special attention will be laid on the issue of ‘trust’, as a building block of the successful cooperation between the members of the COPs.

Virtual Communities of Practice: Theory, Measurement and Organizational Implications

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are informal groups people form around shared problems or disciplines. As natural drivers of knowledge-sharing and innovation, they are the cornerstone of Knowledge Management programs, and are viewed by organizational scholars as a key element of the knowledge-based view of the firm. Nowadays, employees and organizations face considerable turmoil from phenomena such as globalization, rapid technological change, and the increasingly mobile workforce. This hinders employees from regular engagement in face-to-face CoPs, thus increasing the need for virtual CoPs that engage effectively over the Internet. This book reports a systematic search for Usenet-based CoPs that displayed all the traits of co-located CoPs as described in seminal studies. The study used surveys and content analyses as measurement instruments, and found four fully compliant virtual CoPs. The implication for employees is that they can enhance their professional skills through virtual CoP engagement. Organizations, in turn, can foster this engagement in extra-organizational CoPs to tap the rich knowledge ecologies in which businesses work today and keep abreast of fast changing fields.