Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Sónia Sousa et al.
little sense referring to online learning communities, but more as online communities. Although not all
communities can be classified as emerging communities of practice, as Wegner and Snyder (2000)
argues, since not all involve same learning goal activities and therefore provides distinct ways of
learning. For example there are those that are developed on a based of a common interest, for
example on a relationship based or just for knowledge exchange purpose. There are those who are
formed for answer a specific goal or purpose, to solve a project or solve a specific problem. Or, there
are those who are formed to serve specific education contexts, like support learning or teaching
activity in a formal learning context. Agreeing that there are three main points that define a online
community: (1) community goals, associated with the activity that will involve the construction of
knowledge, (2) their level of engagement and (3) their evolution and sustainability through time.
4.1 eLearning practitioners view
The concept map seen on Figure 1 was created based on feedback of eLearning practitioners. Their
ideas were collected and a concept map created to illustrate their understanding of the domain. The
primary concepts have been marked with yellow. These are: online learning communities, learners,
teachers, Internet and networks. The same primary concepts are present in the other concept maps
as well, which represent the understanding of the domain from the perspective of experts and
researchers.
Figure 1: The eLearning practitioners view on what are online learning communities
4.2 eLearning expert view
The concept map seen on Figure 2 demonstrates the experts’ understanding of the domain of online
learning communities. Here the same primary concepts are marked with yellow as well.
4.3 eLearning researcher view
The concept map from Figure 3 demonstrates the research’s understanding of eLearning. The same
primary concepts are identified although the diagram offers a slightly different perspective on the topic
than the one seen on Figure 1 and Figure 2.
4.4 The overall view
Based on the Figures 1, 2 and 3 an overall view concept map was created, see figure 4. The creation
of the overview concept map was conducted according to the following procedure:
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