Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

30 – Supporting E-learning through Communities of Practice
• Plan to collect feedback from the target group for modifications
to the existing processes, features, content,
functionality, and the environment (i.e., user interface).
• Ensure continued development and upgrades to the
current features and continual updates to content.
• Obtain student (and relevant stakeholder) involvement
at all levels: planning, implementation, and
contributions.
HOW DO I ENSURE AN IMPACT ON LEARNING?
(EVALUATION)
• Gather data from Co-op students while at university
and after they have graduated.
• Embed reflective elements whereby students can record/showcase
their learning outcomes (i.e., discussion
forums, comment boxes, community profiles).
• Encourage a pull vs. push approach (enable selfdirected
learning) whereby stakeholders are required
to think about how the information they are seeking
influences them personally, rather than providing
them with directive instructions. Allow for inquirybased
acquisition of content.
HOW DO I LET OTHERS KNOW?
(COMMUNICATION PLAN)
• Attend conferences, events, departmental initiatives,
etc.
• Host information sessions and informal presentations.
• Online promotions (email) are effective, as well as
electronic newsletters.
• Ensure a marketing strategy/plan is in place, specifically
designed to target individual groups.
• Incorporate the online community URL and relevant
information within existing marketing materials (department-level
and/or program level).
• Incorporate the various tools into your regular processes
(i.e., online event registration, creation of profiles
for new intakes, etc.).
• Publish your initiative and findings in academic
journals and/or special-interest publications.
Summary
“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and
forget about progress and prosperity for our community
… Our ambitions must be broad enough
to include the aspirations and needs of others, for
their sakes and for our own”. – Cesar Chavez
In this chapter we have defined communities of practice,
grounded the CoP concept in theoretical background,
and offered guidelines and tips to help you get started
on implementing your own CoP. Case studies describing
several different CoPs illustrate the application of
these ideas and incorporate many of the elements of
successful communities of practice.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the invaluable contributions
of the Sylvia Currie (SCoPE), Paul Stacey (BCcampus),
Andrea Sator and John Grant (SFU Co-op Community)
and Dan O’Reilly (Thompson Rivers University / Small
Cities Online Research Community) through the case
studies used in this chapter.
Glossary
Community of Practice (CoP). A persistent, sustaining
social network of individuals who share and
develop an overlapping knowledge base, set of beliefs,
values, history, and experiences focused on a common
practice and/or mutual enterprise.
References
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Canadian Health Services Research Foundation
(CHSRF) (2003). The Theory and Practice of Knowledge
Brokering in Canada’s Health System. Ottawa.
Retrieved June 10, 2007, from http://www.chsrf.ca
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Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) (2004).
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Ottawa, ON: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Caplan, N. (1978). The Two Communities Theory and
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Carroll, T. G. (2000). If we didn’t have the schools we
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