Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

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A Proposed Framework for Designing Sustainable Communities for Knowledge Management Systems
format used for information posted. A community
manager plays a key role in ensuring this
consistency. Hence:
A community manager should encourage the
posting of standardized documents, templates,
forms, and other electronically storable information
in a consistent manner.
The following shows some consequences of
inconsistent postings.
We had to overhaul the [knowledge repository]
after three years because nobody was following a
consistent style [of classifying documents] … [P]
eople were building their case bases with different
parameter settings, so it became like a soup
of knowledge, and nobody could find anything.
(Markus 2001, p. 81)
We summarize the design guidelines and highlight
our contributions in the following section.
DISCUSSION AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
The design recommendations derived from theory
and past research are summarized in Table 2. In
broad terms, the recommendations can be seen to
fall into four categories: technological, membership,
content, and organizational. To achieve our
objective, we study KMS from a perspective that
incorporates technical, individual, as well as organizational
level literature. These are reflected in
the technological, membership, and organizational
categories. We tie our recommendations to prior
research by suggesting how each of them could
be used to achieve a particular success factor.
In Table 2, each recommendation is followed by
success factor(s) from Table 1 which we believe
to be applicable.
Employing the lens of communities of practice
allowed us to add a fourth level of analysis, that
of a community. The guidelines regarding the
content of KM communities address this level. In
practice, most KMS incorporate communities as
part of their architecture. By drawing on literature
on virtual communities, we add to research
in KMS by proposing design guidelines for the
content and management of such communities.
These categories are not mutually exclusive. For
example, membership profiles need the corresponding
technological features to support them.
Also, the list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Further research studying actual participatory
behavior in KMS would help determine if there
are other design characteristics that facilitate
community participation.
Prior research in IS has not systematically
studied design guidelines for knowledge management
communities. While the design features
discussed have been implemented in current KM
practices, they have emerged more from a process
of trial-and-error; not grounded in research. Organizations
are spending considerable resources,
both in terms of time and money, on knowledge
management efforts, not all of which are successful.
Results from this study could help managers
concerned with KM increase their chances of
success by designing sustainable communities.
Using a community of practice as a lens unifies
the fragmented literature in knowledge management
which, thus far, has studied the phenomenon
separately at the individual, organizational, or
system level. A shift of perspective of community
sustainability from one that retains more
members to one that serves as an effective and
efficient platform for knowledge management
also stimulates new lines of inquiry.
We looked at existing research on knowledge
management and virtual communities, synthesized
the literature, and applied it in the context
of organizational KMS. Our goal was to conceptually
identify guidelines for successful design
of communities in KMS which can be used by
practitioners who wish to implement KMS. Hence,
these guidelines are intended as a blueprint to