Developing Communities of Practice around e-Learning and Project Management - Ruth Laxton and Andrelyn C. Applebee - JOURNAL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION, 2010, VOL. 24, No. 1, pp. 123-142

Abstract: In 2007-8 the Australian Catholic University (ACU National), undertook a project to develop new resources to provide training and support in eLearning for staff and students. The project was undertaken by a multidisciplinary team drawn from all six campuses and was led by an externally contracted Project Manager/  eLearning specialist. This reflective case study reports on how the use of ACU's project management methodology and the selection of a matrix organisation for the project, resulted in the nurturing of existing communities of practice (CoPs) around both eLearning and project management at ACU. Key recommendations are that effective project management practice and a matrix project organisation can promote and nurture knowledge sharing amongst CoPs in a university setting.

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Managing Knowledge within Communities of Practice: Analysing Needs and Developing Services - A. Daele , N. Deschryver et al. - elearningeuropa, eLearning Papers n° 5 (2007)

Summary: This paper addresses the issue of knowledge management and learning within Communities of Practice (CoPs). This issue is particularly challenging at a time of global elearning and implementation and development of CoPs within public or private organisations.

Communities of Practices (CoPs) are groups of professionals who share their knowledge, ideas and practices in a common domain or topic. More and more companies and public institutions turn to the implementation of CoPs, both for capitalizing knowledge and for improving the experience and knowledge of their employees. In this context, important questions arise about the management of collective knowledge and the human organisation, as well as the technological tools to support this process. What are the needs of (online) CoPs concerning their learning, their knowledge management and the organisation of both? What kind of needs could be satisfied by web services? What kind of services? How could they be produced to meet the very specific needs of CoPs? According to socio-cultural theories, learning in community is facilitated by some conditions. First, people have to define personal and common objectives. Second, people have to participate in regular and rich interactions. Another condition is related to the resources produced. These resources can be considered as “common goods” or as the “wealth” of the CoP including its “memory”. These tools belong to the community and can support the learning of each member. The technology configuration for CoPs should provide distinctive technological services to support learning, knowledge sharing and creation, as well as sociability and participation. PALETTE, a European project (2006-2009), investigates CoPs themselves, by working closely with 10 of them, analysing their knowledge management needs and supporting them in implementing new relevant actions for this. Moreover the project studies the technological services that could support the knowledge management and learning processes. In PALETTE these two points of view are closely interrelated through a participatory design methodology. This means that CoPs and developers of knowledge management services work together following an iterative process for identifying the CoPs’ needs, developing knowledge management services based on these needs and organising activities through which the CoPs could really participate in the design of the services.

Keywords: Communities of Practice, Knowledge Management, Informal Learning, Participatory Design, Practice, Research & Development

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