Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

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A Process-Oriented and Technology-Based Model of Virtual Communities of Practices
connecting with other VCoPs, creating subcommunities
around special interest topics,
and sharing best practices. These increases
in information and ideas are powerful tools
that benefit VCoPs members and business
schools.
• Social negotiation must be provided for as
an integral part of learning: other research
has also reinforced the idea that knowledge
accrues through social interaction and cultural
experience, and that learning and social
negotiation are inseparable practices. Learning
theorists indicate that people learn by coconstructing
their knowledge with the help of
experts and peers in a situated context. They
assert that by doing so, people are elevated
to new planes of knowledge and awareness
(Cole & Engestrom, 1993; Driscoll, 2000;
Lave & Wenger, 1991; Leont’ev, 1981; Luria,
1976; Rogoff & Wertsch, 1984; Salomon &
Perkins, 1998; Scribner, 1985; Vygotsky,
1987). As VCoP members interact and learn
from each other, they meet these social and
cultural expectations.
• Learners must be encouraged to own their
learning and basing on his/her existing
knowledge. Ownership as it relates to learning
means that people are aware of what
knowledge they need and are involved in
satisfying those needs (Driscoll, 2000).
Therefore, learners must take control of
their own learning by seeking for answers
to their questions and solutions to their
problems. This is exactly what happens in
informal learning exchanges – individuals
decide they need to know something to do
their work while they are doing their work
and take steps to learn it (Brandenburg &
Binder, 1999; Sorohan, 1993; Weintraub;
1995). Individuals often join CoPs to search
for knowledge they lack or to share knowledge
they have. Members of CoPs help
one another discover knowledge and solve
problems by taking responsibility for their
own and other’s Knowledge.
• Learning should be just-in-time and should
provide context-specific solutions to problems.
VCoPs members can access needed
resources at any time and from any place.
The ability to identify solutions to problems
right when they are needed most increases
learners’ performance capabilities. Recent
developments in the design of web based
tools for communication and problem solving
suggest new way of delivering courses,
based on collaborative and skills-based
learning. In the process of getting and giving
answers to solve problems, CoPs members
learn how to acquire what they need to know
and do. Thus, members of CoPs become
aware of their learning processes as they
learn, they became self directed learners.
In this way, learners are self motivated –
motivated through the wish to do a job more
effectively and achieve greater recognition
for it, alongside the capacity to have more
influence in work situation.
In summary, VCoPs enable an efficient and
effective process of learning through the sharing
of knowledge with a wide range of members, and
they enhance action learning process which is
widely recognized in the literature as essential for
managerial competency development (Gibb, 1997,
Gorman et al., 1997, Deakins & Freel, 1998).
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research Questions
Starting from the above consideration, in our work
we address the following questions:
• Can we define an integrated VCoPs model
that will support all the knowledge management
cycle in a Business School?
• In which way the Knowledge management
organizational and technological aspects are
integrated in a VCoPs?