Communities of practice

Overview

This page is designed to offer an introduction to Communities of Practice (CoPs) from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. It covers general strategies to assist in establishing and nurturing CoPs, including the use of various emerging technologies.

Page history

This page has undergone quite a few stages of development. It was originally titled 'Nurturing a CoP of tertiary teachers of Accounting', and incorporated my developing project that involved using a wiki environment to nurture a CoP within the faculty in which I'm working. I then decided to separate this into two pages - 'Nurturing a CoP using a wiki' and 'Case study: nurturing a CoP of Accounting academics' to separate the general knowledge about CoPs and my individual project.

At that time, I also had set up another page specifically about Communities of Practice - definitions and strategies for nurturing a CoP in general, not specifically using a wiki. Of course, these are similar whether a wiki is used or not, so it now seems redundant to have two separate pages to achieve the same purpose. And that's how we ended up with this page - an example of how wiki pages evolve as they start from individual concerns and try to morph into something that will be most useful for the community.

My individual project page, Case study: nurturing a community of Accounting academics, remains the same.

Contributors and interested others - our community within a community!

Please add your name and avatar here if you've contributed to this page, or if you have an interest in CoPs. It's a way of helping us to find others who share the same interests - a community within a community! It will be sooo lonely if I'm a community of one.

Avatar	Name	What aspect of CoPs are you interested in? Is there something that you'd like to know about CoPs?	Comment
	Carole Hunter	I'm an educational designer working within the School of Accounting. I'm interested in nurturing a CoP within this school to foster greater discussion about teaching and learning issues. You can see my developing project at Case study: nurturing a community of Accounting academics I'm especially interested to see how well wikis work in helping to foster our CoP.	Add your comment here or elsewhere on this page, and I'll respond to your pages!
	Andrew Weppner	For my Assignment 3 I am working as part of a team investigating the educational value of using a virtual 3D world Second Life. Could this be considered an emerging virtual community?	Thanks Andrew! I'm not sure if it is a community or an informal network of people using a similar technology. Remember Wenger's 3 core features of communities - they must have shared interests, interact with one another and share resources and develop resources together. Perhaps the Second Life guides could be considered a CoP - they are working together to develop Second Life resources for others. What do you think?
	Andrew	Carole Second Life certainly is a collection of many communities as the following video shows http://www.blip.tv/file/74378/. One example is people who like the Starwars movies and have created an area to explore and make their own movies. Each area is its own “community” where people of similar interests meet and explore ideas. The Second Life Library is an excellent resource sharing area. Guides as you mentioned are found in most areas help you explore their own part.	Wow! So could we say Second Life as a whole is more of a network, but within it there are smaller communities that share interests and resources with each other, such as the Star Wars community? (Just interested, do their avatars dress up as Star Wars characters?) Do they work together to develop new resources? Reviews of movies, for example, or collections of memorabilia? This is a distinguishing feature of CoPs, from informal networks. Do you think it matters? Carole
	Birgit Loch	I have no prior experience with CoP but am very interested. We are currently setting up a Drupal http://www.Drupal.org site for lecturers involved in writing course material for the new Nursing curriculum. I have also asked ICT to set up a site for a teaching and learning development project for which I am the project manager. My aim is to start a collection of experiences in teaching and learning, which is - from what I gather - a CoP! Before this semester, I had no idea about content management systems, and had never used a Wiki before although my department runs a Wiki. I had thought that systems like this were out of reach. Will see how I go running my own. I think the information you have put together is fantastic, Carole, and I will try some of your suggestions!	Thanks Birgit. Sounds like you'll be doing something similar to my project Case study: nurturing a community of Accounting academics, which is all about sharing knowledge and experiences about teaching and learning. Check out my page in a few weeks and you might be able to pick up some ideas about things to do and things not to do. I'm at the early stages, and it's amazed me how long it takes to get through politics etc of setting it up. I'm still having discussions with IT about why I should / shouldn't be using an external wiki. You sound like you have a better situation, with being able to ask IT to set it up for you. I'll keep an eye out in KG for your project next semester!
	Marlene Manto	I have been working in the area of Communities of Practice since I researched this area back in 2002 as a PD project. I have since 'nurtured' several CoPs in their early stages and have presented on the topic at various workshops. I'd like to point this group to a community called ELGG http://www.elgg.net which uses social connectivity technologies to 'bring together' people who have the same interests and focus. This would be a great way of ensuring the Domain. Its then possible to initiate discussion amongst this group to develop the Practice...and of course, work on the Community. Just a suggestion...	Thanks Marlene. Yes, I've seen ELGG, and sometime soon need to explore it further and add to this page. I started searching for others with interests in eportfolios, and was amazed with what I came up with - so many people who had written and researched about eportfolios and who were having current discussions about varoius issues. Need to look into this more. Thanks again. Carole

Ownership

This page was created by Carole Hunter? as part of the course, FET8611 Emerging Environments for Learning (Semester 2, 2006). It will come into community ownership in November 2006.

1. The humble beginnings of the 'community'

Lamontagne (2005) points out that the development of social structures to encourage learning isn't new. Stop for a second and think about your average caveman's work practices. He might go out, gather some edible plants and (after a few grunts and a moan), hunt for potential game for the family meal. At night, around the campfire, he'd sit with others who have similar interests and work out strategies for cornering prey in future hunting expeditions, or compare notes on the best way to shape tools for various purposes. We may consider the knowledge shared and the processes (OK, and the grunting!) a little more primitive than today, but essentially he's sharing knowledge within a learning community.



Our idea of community became much stronger as civilisation developed, and we started to think about communities in terms of the relationships, usually among people living in the same geographical area and seeing each other on a regular, face-to-face basis. This was your 'neighborhood' community, or local 'work community'. Now, of course, communities are much more widespread. The internet is only 15 years old, yet virtual communities seem to have been around forever. We are all a part of many communities, often involving people from other cities or even other countries. We may never meet, but we certainly have similar interests and share our knowledge in order to learn.

So while Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger are seen to be the pioneers of this oft-quoted concept called Communities of Practice, otherwise known as CoPs, it was all happening way before their time. What they did for us is apply a model to our understanding of this kind of social learning. That model helps us to understand more about how these communities function and what to look for if they aren't functioning in the ways we'd hope or expect.

Let's take a closer look at some key aspects of this model.

2. What is a Community of Practice (CoP)?

We'll start by trying to work out what we mean by CoPs. In this section, we'll look at some definitions and characteristics of CoPs (as opposed to groups and networks), as well as some of the requirements for a CoP to develop.

2.1 Some definitions

CoP refers to a group whose members are brought together by their participation in common activities, and by what they have learned through their engagement in these common activities. Although Lave and Wenger's original research was based in workplace settings, particularly insurance agencies, their core works Wenger (1999) and Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) are now commonly cited in the educational literature.

On his website, Etienne Wenger defines CoPs as follows:

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
Etienne Wenger

In a community, members 'steal' implicit or explicit knowledge by observing and participating with other members (Hung, Chee, Hedbert & Seng, 2005). I prefer to use the word 'share' knowledge, as it signifies the two-way relationship that is so important in a community (and which many of you have probably already felt within Knowledgegarden - the more you add to others' pages, the more you receive in return). A healthy community is built on this same notion of trust and goodwill - you trust that by adding knowledge to the community, you will receive something in return, i.e. others will share something with you that will add to your knowledge base.

Just like an apprenticeship, community members gradually acquire skills and knowledge, as well as learning the rules and processes of the community itself. If we were to describe Knowledgegarden as a community, we'd say that members were learning skills and knowledge by reading and contributing to the pages of others, while also learning how to be a part of this community. Of course, while we're learning to be a part of the community it's common to see members start on the 'periphery', watching others and finding out the rules and processes. Over time, we usually move towards more central participation as we gain knowledge and confidence (Hung, 1999 in Hung, Chee, Hedbert & Seng, 2005).



I also like this definition of virtual communities offered by Howard Rheingold (1993), a pioneer of online community development (quoted by Malene Manto) :

An online community is 'a social aggregation that emerges from the Net, when enough people carry on public discussions, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.'

Nancy White (2005) offers a wide range of definitions of online communities, one of the strangest being from a Federal judge: "Community is like pornography, I don't know how to define it, but I sure know it when I see it." Other definitions are offered here. It seems there is no end to the number of ways we can define a community!

2.2 Characteristics of CoPs

According to Wenger (1998), a CoP has three main characteristics that distinguish them from mere groups or loose networks of people.

• The domain (an area of shared knowledge that links members together)
• The community (members interact, share information and learn together)
• The practice (members develop shared resources).

Firstly, there must be an area of shared knowledge, or domain that links members together. This is the ‘common ground’ that differentiates the community from simply a group of friends or colleagues.

Secondly, members must interact, share information and learn together as a community. There is no one leader in a healthy community, but a sense of shared leadership and ‘goodwill’ where people will contribute to the community’s body of knowledge and trust that at some time they too will benefit from such sharing.

The community creates the social fabric of learning. A strong community fosters interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust. It encourages a willingness to share ideas, expose one’s ignorance, ask difficult questions and listen carefully . . . Community is an important element because learning is a matter of belonging as well as an intellectual process, involving the heart as well as the head.
Wenger (1998, p.28-29)

This idea of mutual respect also encourages differentiation among members. Manto (n.d.) notes the importance of ‘feeling’ within the group–that members feel a sense of identity in that they are accepted for who they are, and feel both a sense of belonging and ownership within the community. They must also feel that what is gained from the community is of value to them.

She states that a community can’t be built, but that it can be shaped ‘so that it responds to the needs of the individuals within it and fosters their positive feelings and therefore ongoing participation, thus leading to the growth and sustainability of that community.’
Finally, members develop and maintain shared knowledge and resources (practice). This includes not only traditional bodies of knowledge, but also the latest advances and future trends. ‘This shared knowledge and resources enables the community to proceed efficiently in dealing with the domain’ (Wenger, 1998, p.29). For a community of practice to be effective, it’s important that members are comfortable with this idea of shared practice.

Gill (2001) differentiates CoPs from other groups in the following ways.

	Mission	Members	Driving force	Duration
Community of practice	Develop members' capabilities, build and exchange knowledge	Self-selected volunteers	Identifcation with subject and enterprise	As long as members remain active
Formal workgroup	Deliver product or service	All who report to group manager	Job requirements and common goals	Until reorganisation
Project team	Accomplish specified task	Employees assiged by management	Project milestones and goals	Until project completion
Informal network	Collect and pass on information	Friends and business acquaintances	Mutual needs	As long as members wish

2.3 How do CoPs develop?

CoPs can arise naturally or they can come from careful nurturing. Nickols (2003) talks about self-organising and sponsored CoPs. A self-organising CoP is voluntary and informal, arising from a shared need. They are fragile, easily disbanding under threat of control or loss of value, but also very resiliant in that they can adapt to members coming and going and issues changing.

A sponsored CoP, on the other hand, is set up by a managing body, and may attract more resources - and be expected to produce more measurable results - than a self-organising CoP.

2.4 Leadership within a CoP

According to Wenger (1998), the development of a community is largely dependent on the quality of its internal leadership. Within a community, there are many kinds of leadership.

• Recognised experts may provide inspiration to the community.
• Those who organise activities might provide day-to-day leadership.
• Those who document practices in the group provide classificatory leadership.
• Those who are active socially provide interpersonal leadership.
• Those who connect the community to others provide boundary leadership.
• Those who maintain links with the rest of the organisation, particularly management, provide institutional leadership.
• Those who are innovative provide cutting edge leadership.

He goes on to state that to be effective, ‘managers and others must work with communities from the inside rather than merely attempt to design them or manipulate them from the outside.’

2.5 Other factors that contribute to a successful CoP

As we mentioned earlier, Marlene Manto talks about the importance of 'feeling'. She states that people need to:

• feel that it fulfills a need that is important to them;
• feel a sense of identity, that they are accepted for who they are;
• feel that people know who they are, as a whole person, not just an employee, researcher, teacher, etc;
• feel a sense of 'belonging';
• feel a sense of ownership;
• feel that the input gained from the community is of value to them, and that the input they provide is of value to others.

She states that a comunity can't be built, but that it can be shaped 'so that it responds to the needs of the individuals within it and fosters their positive feelings and therefore ongoing participation, thus leading to the growth and sustainability of that community.'

3. Nurturing a CoP

In this section, we'll look at strategies for nurturing (or cultivating) a CoP, and look at some lessons learned from others.

3.1 The 7 key principles for cultivating CoPs

Wenger, McDermott & Snyder (2002) talk about 7 key principles for cultivating CoPs. These are:

• Design for evolution CoPs are organic, and may evolve in different directions. Design may be less in the beginning, when the ultimate goal is to attract members.

• Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives Insider knowledge of issues and key players is essential within a CoP, but an outsider perspective is also useful to help the community see the potential of new possiblities and change.

• Invite different levels of participation There will commonly be a core group, an active group and a peripheral group. 'The key to good community participation, and a healthy degree of movement between levels, is to design community activities that allow participants at all levels to feel like full members. Rather than force participation, they make opportunities for semiprivate interaction, whether through private discussion rooms on the community's website, at a community event or in a one-on-one conversation.' Wenger, McDermott & Snyder (2002).

• Develop both public and private community spaces There's a need for public events, but also a need for one-on-one informal conversations where much interaction, relationship-building and learning takes place.

• Focus on value Value is often not self-evident at the initial stages og community establishment. Activities which help the potential value emerge are important.

• Combine familiarity and excitement Routine interactions provide stability and assist in building strong relationships within the community. Exciting events, such as workshops or conferences, provide stimulation.

• Create a rhythm for the community Vibrant communities have a rhythm, fostered through a healthy mix of community events and quieter times.

3.2 What lessons have been learnt from others' experiences?

An interesting example from the Australian Government website

Amy Jo Kim (Community Building on the Web) suggests:

• building 'flexible, extensible gathering PLACES. A community can begin to take root wherever people gather for a shared purpose and start talking among themselves';
• promoting 'cyclic EVENTS. Communities come together around regular events'; and
• integrating 'the RITUALS of community life. All communities use rituals to acknowledge their members and celebrate important social transitions'.

Quoted by Marlene Manto.

4. Using emerging technologies to help nurture a CoP

Emerging technologies have great potential for nurturing CoPs. Here are just a few ideas.

4.1 Wikis

Wikis (which means ‘quick’ in Hawaiian) are collaborative websites that employ the new functionalities of the ReadWrite web; not only are users able to read the content, but they are also able to review, update, reorganise and add new content to each of the wiki pages as they see fit. This ‘open editing’ functionality (Leuf & Cunningham, 2001) makes it possible to develop resources collaboratively at a very fast pace.

There are many different kinds of wikis, often called wiki clones (Augar, Raitman & Zhou, 2004). Being opensource software, these can be downloaded free-of-charge and installed on an internal server, or hosted externally (free of charge or at a cost, usually for additional features) on remote servers. Examples include MediaWiki, PBwiki, Wetpaint and TikiWiki?. Many Learning Management Systems (LMSs), such as Moodle and Sakai, now also include their own internal wikis.

Wiki users can typically interact with each other in two ways: they can work collaboratively to create the content on a wiki page, or discuss the content through a serious of threaded ‘comments’ at the bottom of the page. Some wikis, such as TikiWiki, extend these opportunities for collaboration by offering additional tools, such as blogs, email and full discussion forums, and so become courseware.

Writing or editing a wiki page is relatively simple. Depending on the wiki software, a version of wiki syntax may be used, often referred to as wiki markdown language as it is a much simplified version of the usual html markup used for creating web pages. However most wikis also include editing toolbars with WYSIWYG functionality so that the process of editing is not a great deal different to creating a MSWord document. Changes to a page are tracked, so that a user can see what changes have been made, when and by whom, and can revert to previous versions of the document if required.

These features make wikis a perfect environment for collaboration, and the nurturing of a CoP.

4.2 Blogs

Pita Tuisawau? has put together an excellent page on Blogging to encourage a community of practice. It relates to the use of a blog to support a teaching and learning website and has some good information on the 'whys' of blogging, as well as some 'how tos' and suggestions for things to do and things not to do.

Jean Clayton? alerted me to the following article on blogs and community. Titled Blogs and community - launching a new paradigm for online community? the article 'looks at some of the emerging patterns of blog based communities and raises some questions for their strategic application'.

5. Related pages within Knowledgegarden

More on communities

Building and growing communities Includes stages of membership and different needs at each stage.

Connecting people, Issues and Directions Reveals the results of a survey on social connectivity technologies

Using Wikis to build learning communities amongst academic staff - Explores how emerging technologies, in particular wikis, can be utilised as a tool to promote the development of a professional learning community.

More on emerging technologies for developing communities

Introduction to wikis As the name suggests, a general introduction to wikis, particularly concentrating on principles and guidelines related to the establishment of a wiki environment.

Wiki-suggested ways to best introduce

Establishing your own wiki An overview of some of the major wiki clones, including MediaWiki and pbWiki

Case study: nurturing a community of Accounting academics A case study of using a wiki to nurture a CoP

Building a community of sharing teachers A case study of WordPress used to facilitate online sharing of teaching materials.

Blogging to encourage a Community of Practice Another case study, this time at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.

Creating community This page explores issues related to the creation of a sense of community among online learners, particularly at the tertiary level where students may have no face-to-face contact.

6. Related external websites

http://www.agimo.gov.au/resources/cop Lots of resources here.

Reframing the Future has funding opportunities for establishing CoP's.

McDermott, R (2002) 'Knowing in Community: 1o Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/

http://www.scienceofspectroscopy.info/edit/index.php?title=Using_wiki_in_education has some interesting notes and outbound links

Online Course Design from a Communities-of-Practice Perspective A very useful article on creating a community rather than a curriculum. Paul The article comes from a site on e-learning, and readers can subscribe to newsletters and updates. http://elearnmag.org Jillybean

The Community Engine: Creating effective information communities ‘Online communities exist through interactivity. Three keys to fostering interactivity are: scalability, opportunities for participant initiative, and feedback (responsiveness). Achieving these three things is more important than the specific technology you employ. Sometimes they work against each other.’

Building online communities: Transforming assumptions into success ‘Many nonprofits believe that if some activity is online, "it" will be cheaper, "it" will happen faster and "it" will be easier, no matter what "it" is. This often leads to mistaken assumptions that cause nonprofits to miscalculate the amount of planning and effort needed to build and sustain an online community.

• Assumption #1: Goals and expectations: Who needs them?
• Assumption #2: Everyone will want to participate in our online discussion.
• Assumption #3: Building and maintaining an online community doesn't take much time or staffing.
• Assumption #4: We don't need a promotional strategy for our online community.’

Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge - Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice In an excerpt from their book, Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge, the authors ‘detail seven design principles for cultivating communities, everything from "design for evolution" to "combine familiarly and excitement."’

George Seimens talks about community and offers an extensive list of resources.

Communities of Practice offers more resources

Eduforge is a case study of a community of practice.

Wikipedia: Manual of Style Offers excellent guidelines on writing a wiki article. Within knowlegeGarden it is desirable to include more controversial and personal information

7. References

Augar, N, Raitman, R & Zhou, W 2004, ‘Teaching and learning online with wikis’, in R Atkinson, C McBeath, D Jonas-Dwyer & R Phillips (eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILLITE Conference, Perth, 5-8 December, pp.95-104.

Hung, D, Chee, TS, Hedberg, JG & Seng, KT 2005, A framework for Fostering a Community of Practice: Scaffolding Learners through an Evolving Continuum, British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 36, No 2, pp.159-176.

Leuf, B & Cunningham, W 2001, The Wiki way: Quick collaboration on the Web, Addison Wesley, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA.

Nickols, F 2003, Communities of Practice: An overview. Retrieved October 2 2006 from http://home.att.net/~discon/KM/CoPOverview.pdf

Preece, J & Maloney-Krichmar, D 2005, Online communities: Design, theory, and practice. "Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication", 10(4), article 1. Retrieved October 1 2006 from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/preece.html

Wenger, E. n.d. Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Retrieved September 1 2006 from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

Wenger, E 1998, Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge University Press, New York.

White, N 2005, How Some Folks Have Tried to Describe Community. Retrieved October 2 2006 from http://www.fullcirc.com/community/definingcommunity.htm

8. Comments

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