Creating Communities of Practice for Higher Education Transformation

Creating Communities of Practice for Higher Education Transformation NMC Annual Meeting 2004

Speakers • Soren Kaplan, co-founder of iCohere (http://www.icohere.com) • Vicki Suter, Director of NLII Projects (http://www.educause.edu/nlii)

Overview of key questions • What is a “community of practice?” What is a “virtual community of practice?” • Why is this an NLII key theme? • How can VCOPs facilitate and foster knowledge sharing, collaborative learning and institutional change? • What are some underlying theories, models and principles involved in cultivating communities of practice for these purposes? • What are the functional requirements for selecting tools

What is a “community of practice?” • “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion for a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” (Wenger 2002)

What is a “community of practice?” • “Communities of Practice are groups of people who come together to share and to learn from one another face-to-face and virtually. They are held together by a common interest in a body of knowledge and are driven by a desire and need to share problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools, and best practices” (American Productivity & Quality Center)

What is a “virtual community of practice” • a group of people (and the “place” that they collectively create) that relies primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) on electronic communication media tocommunicate, connect and carry out community activities

Why is this an NLII Key Theme? • VCOPs serve as one strategy to achieve the NLII mission (use technology to enable higher education that is active and learner-centered, dynamic and lifelong, collaborative, cost-effective, accessible and high quality)

NLII’s Approach • Involve all stakeholders necessary to achieve this transformation of higher education • provide learning and knowledge creation environments for NLII members, and leverage their collective energy and imagination

Underlying Assumptions • Knowledge is constructed socially. • Learning (at the individual, institutional, and collective levels) is the basis for transformation of practice • Face to face experiences are: • important, AND • Bounded by space, time, and money.

Underlying Assumptions about Technology • Technology can provide an environment in which learners (students, faculty, staff, association members) can build their understanding and construct knowledge • Web-based collaborative technologies can be used to overcome other barriers in the creation of broad-based, vibrant, and engaged academic communities

Our Assertion • VCOPs can facilitate and foster knowledge sharing, collaborative learning and institutional change

Elements of a set of social processes for change • A complex set of social processes leads to learning, to the creation of knowledge, and to positive change for individuals, groups and organizations • VCOPs can facilitate these processes by supporting: • Activities • Social Structures • Integration* *The process of bringing all parts together into a whole.

VCOP Framework

A brief shared inquiry • Pair up, and take the next 20 minutes or so to interview each other, asking the questions in Sections 1 and 2 of the handout, and taking brief notes in the summary section. • We’ll do some sharing of the three themes that stood out the most during the interviews.

Case # 1: Catalyst for Change (Individual & Organization) • “…within a month or so Robert began to change his attitude and style in our weekly face-to-face meetings. Somehow, participating in our online dialogue helped him realize that there could be some exciting benefit to sharing his ideas more widely before asking us to act on them – and listening to our responses to his ideas. Before long he even began to do that in his personal interactions with us as well as in our online interactions. The online interactions opened the door and he was willing to walk right through it! It was amazing to see that happen so quickly.” (From forthcoming chapter, Technology and OD in Practicing Organizational Development)

Underlying Principles for Case #1 • Communication • Interaction • Shared Context Creation • Reflection

Case # 2: Collective Practice • Background & challenge: • Emerging Technology (Electronic portfolios) - 2001 • Technical development needed to be informed by pedagogy (reflection) • Implications on practice for use of e-portfolios needed to be explored

Background • Long, elegant and well-documented history and well-established community of practice for portfolios • Not enough interaction between tool-makers and tool-users • John Ittelson, 2001 Fellow, took on eportfolios as his research topic

E-PAC • E-PAC developed into a community of communities • Brings together technologists – the tool-makers - and practitioners (faculty and instructional designers) – the tool usersin structured activities http://www.educause.edu/vcop/e_port.asp

Results (Case #2) • Vibrant community that connects various communities across institutions, conferences and meetings, professions, markets • Shared conceptual framework (definition, pedagogical purposes, taxonomy) • Knowledge sharing (project briefings) • Knowledge creation (IMS technical specifications)

Results (Case #2, cont) • Facilitated the formation of sub-groups of members with similar interests (OSPI) and the ePortConsortium • Organized a meeting at the AAHE Assessment Conference where members expert on assessment advised the OSPI developers on assessment-related functionality. • Publicized and increased access to the products of events such as the Clemson Digital Portfolio Institutes and the ePortfolios 2003 international conference (three of the five keynote speakers were E-PAC members)

Underlying Principles for Case #2 • Bridging • Persistent presence of ideas, individuals, communities • Simultaneity • Synchronicity

Energy, Commitment & Visibility Institutionalize Grow Launch Design Inquire Time Life Cycle - Communities of Practice (Adapted from: McDermott, 2002)

Functional Requirements • Functional requirements shift slightly depending on the community’s purpose and lifecycle phase. Specific requirements are based on:

Discussion Questions • With regard to the VCOP framework (slide 13), and the Functional Requirements matrix (slide 24) – What technology features and functionality • Create an integrated environment & integrated experiences for community members? • Sustain continuity of action/activity? • Bridge time, distance and differences for persistent presence of ideas, individuals, groups & community?

Contacts & URLs • Soren Kaplan, iCohere (http://www.icohere.com) • Vicki Suter, Director of NLII Projects • vsuter@educause.edu) (http://www.educause.edu/nlii) More on NLII VCOPs – see http://www.educause.edu/vcop

Creating Communities of Practice for Higher Education Transformation