Online Communities of Practice

Argumentation Schemes and Communities of Argumentational Practice

by Andrew Aberdein

In Argument cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 2009, Juho Ritola, ed. (Windsor, ON: OSSA, 2010).

Is it possible to distinguish communities of arguers by tracking the argumentation schemes they employ? There are many... more Is it possible to distinguish communities of arguers by tracking the argumentation schemes they employ? There are many ways of relating schemes to communities, but not all are productive. Attention must be paid not only to the admissibility of schemes within a community of argumentational practice, but also to their comparative frequency. Two examples are discussed: informal mathematics, a convenient source of well-documented argumentational practice, and anthropological evidence of nonstandard reasoning.

Continuing professional development through reflexive networks: Disrupting online communities of practice

by Gurmit Singh

Singh, G., McPherson, M. & Sandars, J. (2012). Continuing professional development through reflexive networks: Disrupting online communities of practice. Paper presented at ProPEL International Conference 2012, University of Stirling, UK, May 2012.

Rural Development Networks: A Mapping Exercise

by Martine Miller

In Focus: Engaging Academic and Non-academic Communities through Online Scholarly Work, Cinema Journal

by Christopher Lucas

An Online Marketplace Serving Those Who Serve (9/13/10)

by Michael Russell

This article is was published as a guest blog post on the AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association) official SignalScape blog and on GovLoop.com.

Blake Hall is a man on a mission: to help U.S. military personnel use “Web 2.0” Internet technologies to help one... more Blake Hall is a man on a mission: to help U.S. military personnel use “Web 2.0” Internet technologies to help one another and themselves. Hall’s no stranger to demanding missions. A decorated former U.S. Army Captain and Airborne Ranger who led a scout platoon in Iraq, he relates how the first time he ever led a combat mission, his battalion commander laid his hand on his shoulder and said ominously, “Hall, don’t screw it up.” And based on the overwhelmingly positive, initial response to his and his co-founders’ new, veteran-owned web venture, TroopSwap.com, an online community and marketplace for active duty U.S. military, reservists, veterans and their families, that battalion commander would be more than proud.

Fresh from his powerful and moving Washington Post article that has attracted international attention, Blake Hall sat down with me to discuss TroopSwap.com at O’Reilly Media’s Government 2.0 Summit, the inspiring two-day mind-meld of technology and public policy innovators last week in Washington, D.C.

Communities of practice in inclusive education

by Geert Van Hove

Creating Online Collaborative Environments for Museums: A case study of a museum wiki

by Jonathan Bowen

Alison H.-Y. Liu (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) and Jonathan P. Bowen. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 7(4):407-428, 2011. Special issue on Designing Shared Spaces for Collaborative Creativity.
DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2011.042988

Museums have been increasingly adopting Web 2.0 technology to reach and interact with their visitors. Some have... more Museums have been increasingly adopting Web 2.0 technology to reach and interact with their visitors. Some have experimented with wikis to allow both curators and visitors to provide complementary information about objects in the museum. An example of this is the Object Wiki from the Science Museum in London. Little has been done to study these interactions in an academic framework. In the field of knowledge management, the concept of 'communities of practice' has been posited as a suitable structure in which to study how knowledge is developed within a community with a common interest in a particular domain, using a sociological approach. Previously this has been used in investigating the management of knowledge within business organisations, teachers' professional development, and online e-learning communities. The authors apply this approach to a museum-based wiki to assess its applicability for such an endeavour.

Sources of knowledge acquisition for Chinese software engineers

by Dimitris Assimakopoulos

An Approach to the Analysis of Textual Identity Through Profiles of Evaluative Disposition

by alexanne don

A FRAMEWORK FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF INTERACTIVE NORMS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF TEXTUAL IDENTITY IN WRITTEN DISCOURSE …

by alexanne don

A PhD thesis submitted in 2007

This thesis proposes a framework designed to describe a variety of asynchronous written modes of interaction, based on... more This thesis proposes a framework designed to describe a variety of asynchronous written modes of interaction, based on a case study of an email discussion list. The framework focuses on the generic conventions of a representative set of texts produced by the email group whose core members had been actively participating for a period of 8 years. A corpus of texts—comprised of sets of posts written by three list identities, sections of selected 'threads', plus other strips of list activity—is used to illustrate the approach to analysis which the thesis outlines.

The thesis argues that generic conventions within a discourse community are a product of the overall social purpose of the interaction and the rhetorical purpose of each contribution. The underlying social purpose of group participation and in this list in particular was taken to be the negotiation of identity through the legitimation and reproduction of group conventions. In the service of this negotiation, the rhetorical purpose of the texts was persuasive and therefore argumentative or expository in stance. For this reason, the deployment of resources of evaluation using the Appraisal framework formed one of the primary means of tracking rhetorical organisation.

Five heuristics for designing and evaluating web-based communities

by Linda Gallant

Gallant, L.M., Boone, G. M. & Heap, A. (2007). Five heuristics for evaluating web-based communities. First Monday, 12 (3). URL: http://firstmonday.org

From a three-step analysis of online communities, a set of five heuristics emerged: interactive creativity; selection... more From a three-step analysis of online communities, a set of five heuristics emerged: interactive creativity; selection hierarchy; identity construction; rewards and costs; and, artistic forms. These heuristics were generated from concepts appearing in past research, and then tested by a content analysis with focus groups using the case examples of two well-developed Web-based communities, Facebook and MySpace. The users saw this type of social technology as a flexible form of their own expression to create their own identities, social relationships, and meanings. Overall, MySpace was seen as offering greater creativity and artistic form than Facebook. The users in this study used online communities for gaining social rewards; e.g., forming and maintaining friendships, with little concern for social costs such as time expended or privacy concerns. This study contributes to a set of heuristics that can be used to evaluate other Web-based online communities in social contexts such as gaming, communities of practice, and business.

Communities of Practice In the Distributed International Environment

by Chris Kimble

P. Hildreth, C. Kimble and P. Wright. Communities of Practice in the Distributed International Environment. Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(1), 2000, pp. 27 - 37.

Modern commercial organisations are facing pressures, which have caused them to lose personnel. When they lose people,... more Modern commercial organisations are facing pressures, which have caused them to lose personnel. When they lose people, they also lose their knowledge. Organisations also have to cope with the internationalisation of business forcing collaboration and knowledge sharing across time and distance. Knowledge Management (KM) claims to tackle these issues. This paper looks at an area where KM does not offer sufficient support, that is, the sharing of knowledge that is not easy to articulate. The focus in this paper is on Communities of Practice in commercial organisations. We do this by exploring knowledge sharing in Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of Communities of Practice and investigating how Communities of Practice may translate to a distributed international environment. The paper reports on two case studies that explore the functioning of Communities of Practice across international boundaries.

Designing for Mod Development: User Creativity as Product Development Strategy on the Firm-Hosted 3D Software Platform

by Shenja van der Graaf

PhD Thesis (2009)

The thesis is designed to improve our understanding of user participation in Web-based development practices in the... more The thesis is designed to improve our understanding of user participation in Web-based development practices in the commercial setting of the 3D software industry. It aims to investigate whether the creative capacities of users and their contributions to the online firm-hosted 3D platform are indicative of a novel configuration of production that influences the processes of product development across firm boundaries.

The thesis mobilizes the user participation literature developing in media research as its main theoretical framework. It builds on insights derived from work on user participation in media sites as seen through a cultural lens, in particular, as developed in Henry Jenkins’ notions of ‘participatory’ and ‘convergence culture’. The user participation literature is supported by a combination of insights drawn from work on communities of practice and user-centered innovation so as to offer a more robust approach to examine and appreciate the firm-hosted 3D platform as a site of user participation. More specifically, the conceptual framework for the study provides a basis for an examination of the ways a software developer firm encourages user participation in a market and of how this enables and facilitates particular modes of user creativity. These are shown to shape and maintain a firm-hosted platform that aids product development efforts that are expected to benefit the developer firm. An empirical study of the platform, Second Life, provides the basis for the analysis of firm-user interactions which are shown to underpin a distinctive firm learning process in the context of product development that occurs across permeable firm boundaries.

The thesis yields insight into the way a developer firm invites its user base to partner with it in product development, indicating how aspects of user participation associated with non-market dynamics are embedded in commercial activity and professionalism. The pivotal role of users is revealed in the design, development and sustainability of a firm-hosted 3D product. The findings point to interesting relationships between the distinctive creative capacities of users and the range of capabilities afforded by the firm-provided design space. Variations in user participation and contributions to product development suggest that particular patterns of learning opportunities occur. The analysis yields several new concepts including a ‘modification effect market’ which are used to extend existing conceptualizations of user participation in digital development practices in the commercial setting of the 3D software industry

Dulwich OnView: A Museum Blog run by the Community for the Community

by Jonathan Bowen

Alison H.Y. Liu (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan), Sarah McDaid (London South Bank University), Jonathan P. Bowen, and Ingrid Beazley (Dulwich Picture Gallery). In David Bearman and Jennifer Trant (eds.), MW2010: Museums and the Web 2010, Denver, USA, 9-12 April 2010. Archives & Museum Informatics, 2010.

Read more: Archives & Museum Informatics: Museums and the Web 2010: Papers: Liu, A., et al., Dulwich OnView: A Museum Blog Run by the Community for the Community
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/liu/liu.html
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Dulwich OnView (DOV) is an on-line blog magazine associated with the Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) in south London.... more Dulwich OnView (DOV) is an on-line blog magazine associated with the Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) in south London. Uniquely, it has been set up by some Friends of DPG in the local community, with a symbiotic relationship between that community and the museum. DPG benefits from the marketing and publicity generated by DOV. DOV benefits from the status that DPG brings to it. This paper explores recent developments of DOV in the context of its community, including a study based on the Community of Practice (CoP) approach and a usability review for a planned redesign of the Web site.

Keywords: art museum, blogging, social networking, virtual community, on-line magazine, Web design

Dulwich OnView: an art museum-based virtual community generated by the local community

by Jonathan Bowen

Ingrid Beazley, Jonathan P. Bowen, Sarah McDaid, and Alison H.Y. Liu. In Alan Seal, Jonathan P. Bowen, and Kia Ng (eds.), EVA London 2010 Conference Proceedings, Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC), British Computer Society, 2010, pages 79-86.

Dulwich OnView (DOV) is a museum blog magazine run by the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) for the surrounding... more Dulwich OnView (DOV) is a museum blog magazine run by the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) for the surrounding community in south London. It includes articles concerning both the gallery and the local community, helping to promote DPG in the process, in a fast-moving informal way that complements the official DPG website. For example, a competition for online artworks has been undertaken using DOV in association with a temporary exhibition of works by the 20th century British artist Paul Nash. This paper provides an overview of the progress of the blog, since its launch in January 2008, including statistical information. A redesign of the DOV blog has been undertaken in 2010, aimed at a better structuring of the increasing number of articles into categories and the integration between the more formal and static DPG website and the more informal and dynamic DOV website, with suitable interconnecting links. As part of the redesign process for the DOV website a usability review was conducted. DOV has also been part of a wider study, investigating a number of varied museum-based virtual communities in an art education context using the social science Community of Practice (CoP) framework.

From a Community of Practice to a Body of Knowledge: A Case Study of the Formal Methods Community

by Jonathan Bowen

By Jonathan P. Bowen and Steve Reeves. In Michael Butler and Wolfram Schulte (eds.), FM 2011: 17th International Symposium of Formal Methods. Springer-Verlag, LNCS, Volume 6664, pages 308-322, 2011. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-21437-0_24

See also http://issuu.com/jpbowen/docs/fm2011

A Body of Knowledge (BoK) is an ontology for a particular professional domain. A Community of Practice (CoP) is the... more A Body of Knowledge (BoK) is an ontology for a particular professional domain. A Community of Practice (CoP) is the collection of people developing such knowledge. In the paper we explore these concepts in the context of the formal methods community in general and the Z notation community, as has been supported by the Z User Group, in particular. The existing SWEBOK Software Engineering Body of Knowledge is considered with respect to formal methods and a high-level model for the possible structure of of a BoK is provided using the Z notation.

Holding the Virtual Space: The Roles and Responsibilities of Community Stewardship

by Brenda Kaulback

Overcoming the Barriers to Virtual Team Working Through Communities of Practice

by Chris Kimble

presented at Working in the New Economy, 6th International ITF Workshop & Business Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 2001

This paper examines the nature of virtual teams and their place in the networked economy. It presents a framework for... more This paper examines the nature of virtual teams and their place in the networked economy. It presents a framework for categorising virtual teams and argues that fundamental changes have taken place in the business environment that forces people and organisations to operate in two spaces simultaneously: the physical space and the electronic space. It highlights some of the issues of trust and identity that exist in virtual teams and argues that, due to certain barriers, only a small proportion of these teams reach a satisfactory level of performance. Using the evidence from two recent sets of studies, it highlights some of the barriers to effective virtual team working and demonstrates the critical importance of trust and social bonding to the functioning of such teams. It reports on the use of a Community of Practice in a virtual team and argues that this may provide one mechanism for overcoming some of the barriers. Finally, it argues that many of the problems stem from a lack of understanding of the new geography of the information economy and that, rather than accepting the notion that geography no longer matters, continued efforts must be made to understand the relationship between the physical world in which we live and the electronic world of virtual team working.

Community of practice design guide

by Vicki Suter

Co-authored with Darren Cambridge and Soren Kaplan.

This guide provides a practical approach to creating communities of practice (CoPs) based on experiences working with... more This guide provides a practical approach to creating communities of practice (CoPs) based on experiences working with corporations, nonprofits, associations, government organizations, and educational institutions. While it is important to recognize that every organization and community is different, this guide provides a structure to help clarify the most important design elements that go into defining, designing, launching, and growing CoPs—both online and face-to-face. The first three pages of the guide are designed for those who are considering the strategic use of CoPs to facilitate collaboration, learning, or knowledge generation and want to know more. The subsequent pages of the guide are designed to help CoP designers and facilitators understand the questions, issues, and options involved in planning and cultivating communities.

Connecting future teachers with the teachers of today

by Larysa Nadolny