Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

The Argentine IT Professionals Forum
state agenda. Many issues are not included in this
agenda. In view of the present crisis Argentina is
going through, with its resulting poverty, hunger,
and unemployment, it would seem politically
incorrect to develop technological policies in
order to improve the state’s performance. This
is the case with the E-Government National Plan
because it would mean an expense in hardware
and software, which is not a priority. The ITNO
falls under this context, making it hard to fulfill
its goals.
With respect to the informal structure of networks
and CoPs, governmental control is limited,
causing certain uneasiness in political authorities.
This situation could be reverted if the government
became familiar with their functioning.
In other countries, there are also misunderstandings.
Snyder and Souza Briggs (2003, p.
51) state that:
there are several ways to address these concerns:
by seeing the emergence of CoPs as an evolutionary
process, not a cataclysmic revolution;
by distinguishing the knowledge-building and
knowledge-sharing functions of these communities
with the primarily transactional focus of product-
and service-delivery units; and by understanding
that collaborative, boundary-crossing networks
need not mark the loss of government’s publicservice
identity and influence, but rather serve as
an expansion of both.
Another interesting topic has to do with the
possibilities to develop free software in a context
of scarcity of resources.
Indeed, it is a hard task to develop software
without the necessary resources. However, it
should be remembered that the ITPF is made up
of several organizations that may be working on
software developments with their own resources
(for example, the AFIP, the Argentinean tax
agency; ANSES, the pension funds administrator,
and the Central Bank). This software is usually
made available in order to test its applicability
in other sectors.
It goes without saying that every agency where
the software is applied will need its own resources
so that the software can be implemented and the
necessary training supplied. In some cases, directives
from the ITNO are required.
I have mentioned earlier some ways in which it
has been possible to generate a network for the creation
of LINUX training courses. I should add that
the group of tutors is made up of IT experts who
share their knowledge. Their tutoring is almost
free. Moreover, they have designed courses for
public officials. It should be noticed that it would
have been hard to find enough LINUX teachers
for this task, and the few available ones would
have charged very high fees. If this had been the
case, the courses would not have started.
The fourth challenge I would like to refer to
is how the ITPF can broaden the professional
competencies of IT experts.
The ITPF has come a long way. At its inception,
the members were against interacting with other
systems, actors, or forums. Nowadays, they are
starting to change this attitude of isolation, interacting
with legislators, scholars, lawyers, humanresources
directors, and front-desk chiefs.
The evolution of the ITPF is also reflected in
the language its members have been adopting.
Rather than just using IT jargon, they have integrated
IT terms into an interlinguistic field. This
attitude helps to include the addressees’ needs by
letting them have a say in their decisions. Broadly
speaking, IT experts are responsible for showing
the way in which technology can be used to
improve decision-making processes. Thus, they
should be familiar with public-administration
rules and the specific needs of public officials.
The ITPF has contributed to collective knowledge
about the culture of organizations in connection
with information and technology, the rules of the
game, as well as the implicit hierarchies and their
informal structure.
Through their own experience at the ITPF, its
members have also learned to work in networks
to perceive the environment, communicate skills,
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