Communities of practice (CoP) (Wenger, 1998) have the potential to be conducive to mastery of new knowledge When building communities on natural networks, coordinators must be generated to organize and maintain the community activities, such as building important topics, initiating simple knowledge sharing activities and arranging social activities. The coordinators also need to provide the members with the time and encouragement to reflect, share ideas with others, and think through the implications of other ideas. Because communities are organized and supported differently, community development requires a different set of tools and approaches. CoPs often require time to develop. Because they are organic, CoPs need time to find the right kind of information to share, the right level of detail, the right participants and the right forums. Individuals must support the community in making these discoveries quickly; but, since information, level of detail, participants, and right forums will be different for different communities, each community will need to discover their own appropriate forum, according to Chih-Hsiung Tu, Ph.D. and Michael Corry authors of Research in an Online Learning Community.
Communities of Practice offer a way to theories tacit knowledge which can not easily be captured, codified and stored. Communities can help make it easier for individuals to share explicit forms of knowledge. While many communities use repository-based systems to create a shared “place” where individuals can find examples of tools, past proposals, presentations and the like, they also ensure that the repository actually serves the community needs. First, communities can help serve as a vetting mechanism by sorting through and filtering content that is placed in a repository to ensure that the material is valuable to others. In order to have a successful community of practice companies must focus resources on communities that have strategic implications for the organization, provide the community with time and space to interact designate roles and responsibilities to support the community, and market the community and its success stories.
CoPs are useful tools of collaborative learning. I think that peer to peer learning is sometimes more effective than other styles. Within the CoP the greatest asset is sharing knowledge and any knowledge that will benefit the organization and the individual be stored.
Communities of Practice offer a way to theories tacit knowledge which can not easily be captured, codified and stored. Communities can help make it easier for individuals to share explicit forms of knowledge. While many communities use repository-based systems to create a shared “place” where individuals can find examples of tools, past proposals, presentations and the like, they also ensure that the repository actually serves the community needs. First, communities can help serve as a vetting mechanism by sorting through and filtering content that is placed in a repository to ensure that the material is valuable to others. In order to have a successful community of practice companies must focus resources on communities that have strategic implications for the organization, provide the community with time and space to interact designate roles and responsibilities to support the community, and market the community and its success stories.
CoPs are useful tools of collaborative learning. I think that peer to peer learning is sometimes more effective than other styles. Within the CoP the greatest asset is sharing knowledge and any knowledge that will benefit the organization and the individual be stored.
kiva.org and many other communities that provide microfinancing services represent a set of quite different types of online communities. They serve as online brokers aggregating financial resource from suppliers of capital and provide both finance and knowledge to help poor communities of family business entrepreneurs.
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