Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Mehdi Shami Zanjani, Hamid Rahimian and Farnoosh Alami
• Lack <strong>of</strong> Willingness and Motivation to Share Knowledge
Our results show that <strong>the</strong> members’ shared interest, desire and motivation to share Knowledge and
best practices is <strong>the</strong> most crucial determinant factor <strong>of</strong> COPs success. Willingness to teach and
Motivation to learn are <strong>the</strong> preconditions <strong>of</strong> learning process and sharing knowledge. Some
interviewees highlighted that if students don’t feel usefulness & productivity <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> e-COPs, <strong>the</strong>y don’t
have enough enthusiasm to participate.
• Ambiguity <strong>of</strong> Incentives
In most e-COPs, students cannot be possibly forced to share individual knowledge with o<strong>the</strong>rs;
<strong>the</strong>refore, incentives should be tactically utilized to gain <strong>the</strong> trust <strong>of</strong> knowledge owners and produce a
much more incentivized, motivated and committed COP members. Our results demonstrate that lack
<strong>of</strong> incentives like “a persuasive message from <strong>the</strong> teacher / <strong>the</strong> teacher assistant”, “introducing as <strong>the</strong>
best contributor <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> e-COP”, “extra mark for active students in <strong>the</strong> e-COP” and “assigning additional
roles in <strong>the</strong> e-COP to active students” are challenging factors <strong>of</strong> e-COPs in <strong>the</strong> university.
• Weakness in Leadership
Initiating valuable topics, evaluating comments, sending feedback, summarizing and closing debates
are main responsibility <strong>of</strong> teacher assistants as e-COPs leaders. Our findings indicate that eCOPs
leadership is one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most important challenges. Results suggest that capable e-COP leaders act
as drivers and control agents for monitoring whe<strong>the</strong>r or not <strong>the</strong> e-COP effectively develops and shares
best practices over a specific period <strong>of</strong> time. Our data reveal that in some e-COPs where <strong>the</strong> leader is
not fully able to activate <strong>the</strong> connections between members, it is less likely that <strong>the</strong> knowledge flows’
density will increase.
• Absence <strong>of</strong> Rich Interactions
Evidence also suggests that lack <strong>of</strong> one-to-one interaction between members, especially face-to-face,
is a serious challenge <strong>of</strong> e-COPs. Some interviewees highlighted that pure virtual COPs can’t work in
<strong>the</strong> university environments. They insist on complementary face-to-face interaction in order to make
friendlier and closer environment among community members. Our results show that because <strong>of</strong>
geographically dispersion <strong>of</strong> COPs members - <strong>the</strong>y meet each o<strong>the</strong>r only twice in a semester – e-
COPs are not warm enough.
• Inexperience Community Members
Majority <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university students have a few job experiences. When we talk about e-COPs for
sharing best practices and lesson learned, <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> job experiences is very important. Some
interviewees argue that one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most challenging reasons <strong>of</strong> e-COPs failure is lack <strong>of</strong> valuable
stories to share with o<strong>the</strong>r members.
• Copy & Paste Culture
COPs leaders highlighted that “copy & paste culture” hurts effectiveness <strong>of</strong> some e-COPs, especially
e-COPs that member’s participation is mandatory. According to interviewees, <strong>the</strong> best case in an e-
COP happens when members tell personal stories to <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>rs. In <strong>the</strong> university, some students
participate in debate only because <strong>of</strong> its mark. As a result, <strong>the</strong>y don’t want to spend big energy on it.
From <strong>the</strong>ir viewpoint, <strong>the</strong> shortest road is searching in <strong>the</strong> Internet and finding something to copy on
e-COPs. This makes e-COPs repetitive, boring and unchallenging.
4. Conclusion
As e-learning continues to increase in importance, research on virtual communities <strong>of</strong> practice <strong>of</strong>fers
<strong>the</strong> potential to contribute significantly to our understanding <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> new paradigm <strong>of</strong> learning.
E-COPs have been identified as playing a critical role in <strong>the</strong> promotion <strong>of</strong> collective learning in
educational environments. The purpose <strong>of</strong> knowledge diffusion activities in e-COPs is primarily to
transfer <strong>the</strong> knowledge that is preserved by members to <strong>the</strong> one who lacks by using information
technology infrastructure.
As a result <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> research effort, six challenges <strong>of</strong> e-COPs in <strong>the</strong> University <strong>of</strong> Mehralborz were
recognized. The factors considered include “lack <strong>of</strong> willingness and motivation to share knowledge”,
“ambiguity <strong>of</strong> incentives”, “weakness in leadership”, “absence <strong>of</strong> rich interactions”, “inexperience
community members” and “copy & paste culture”.
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