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In the late 90's there was a lot of energy around "virtual communities." They were touted as the ultimate web deployment, the key to online commerce and later online education. Early adopters swarmed sites and racked up web hits in the millions. But then there was a deafening silence. Commerce and media sites began closing down their discussion boards. Even busy boards like CNN's were shuttered. Was the online community movement dead? No, it was just transforming itself, settling down and maturing into a space where it had real value and applicability. The bottom line is that online community or online interaction is not the goal. It's one means for helping groups achieve their goals. It is not necessarily about "online community" but what conditions and process are needed to enable communities to use the online environment.

Building an online learning community to support nurse education 24 March 2009 This article explores developing an online learning community that student nurses can use to support their education Abstract Lee, P. (2009) Building an online learning community to support nurse education. Nursing Times; 105: 11. This article explores the topic of developing an online community for student nurses to use in learning. It examines the different definitions and types of e-learning and outlines the online community's role in healthcare education, together with some of its pitfalls. A comparison is then made to the process of bidding on eBay, to determine possible similarities.

Online community learning is great in that it provides us the opportunity to learn anytime, anywhere we have connectivity. But that is a pretty rosy view when we consider the competition a course has against everything else going on in our lives. Often "oh, I can do this anytime so I'll do it later" leaves a course to be done in the wee hours of the night or on weekends when we really might like or need to be doing something else. A learner who stays away too long may begin to feel they have fallen too far behind, or isolated from their community. That's where synchronous events can help. They can keep the heartbeat of a learning community going strong. For some, they create a sense of community, relationship and "realness" -- voices and not just words on a screen. What are synchronous events? Synchronous online events are when some or all of the learners are online at the same time and interacting using tools such as Voice over IP (VoIP), telephone bridge lines, chat rooms, web meetings and instant messengers. They can be discussion based, or can be a presentation by a guest or tutor with time for questions and answers. They can be large group or small group breakouts from the larger community. Some examples include: * Weekly online tutor "office hours." Learners can log on and ask questions, get support and just check in. These could be mandatory or voluntary. I find that if you do one first that is "all hands" people can get a sense of the value of the office hours, then are more likely to participate in the future. * Presentations and guest speakers & lecturers. First of all, if you aren't planning any interaction with the learners around lectures or presentations, don't make them synchronous. Provide them as web content. But if you can bring in a special guest, that is worth a fixed meeting time and it makes it -- well - SPECIAL. But this is not about pushing powerpoints. A good online presentation will mix presentation with interative activities -

Why Facilitate Online? Online group interactions do not always "happen" spontaneously. They require care and nurturing: facilitation. The core of facilitation and hosting is to serve the group and assist it in reaching its goals or purpose. Some describe this role as a gardener, a conductor, the distributed leadership of jazz improvisers, a teacher, or an innkeeper. It can be this and more. Levitt, Popkin and Hatch, in their article "Building Online Communities for High Profile Internet Sites" wrote, "Communities are organic in nature and site owners can't make them successful or force them to grow. As site owner can only provide the fertile ground on which a community may grow, and then provide some gentle guidance to help the group thrive. Much of the challenge in fostering an online community is social, rather than technical." Facilitation is a balance between functions that enhance the environment and content, create openness and opportunity, and functions that protect the members from harassment.

Starting an Online Community Posted on March 24th, 2009 by Harold Jarche There are several factors that should be looked at when creating a collaborative working/learning space. I've previously referred to Column Two's three tiers of collaboration - Capacity, Capability & Strategy and it's a good model to start with. Part of capacity are the existing processes and culture of collaboration while capability includes the best tools for the job. It's not easy for a group of individuals, who do not know each other, to work collaboratively from the onset. It is even more difficult to ask that this collaboration occur online when the participants are not in the habit of working on the Internet. The practice of sharing needs to be joined with the tools that work for the culture. Finally, strategy includes the leadership, direction and project management of getting things going to work collaboratively online.

Facilitator Qualities and Skills These online facilitator qualities and skills started with the the QUALITIES FAQ created by the Group Facilitation Listserv GRP-FACL@CNSIBM.ALBANDY.EDU. I took the qualities posted to the list, then sorted them alphabetically. After letting them set, I started sorting and adding in context for online facilitation. I'm looking for sets of qualities and patterns. What do you think is important in the online context? What is less important? What is missing?

"As a matter of fact, the questions that zip through my mind everytime I think of how I can improve my own skills at community building, are so many that I always end up with more unanswered doubts than solutions. * How do you nurture engagement inside your community? * How do you keep the community going? * How do you get people to socialize inside a new community? To get some answers to these critical questions, I have briefly taken hostage online facilitation and community-building expert Nancy White during her last Rome visit, a few days ago.Nancy is a truly experienced person in this area and she always speaks out of the ongoing in-depth experience she has with real communities, both online and in real life. Her answers are non-technical, pragmatical, and if you are not into community building yet, quite enlightening."

"Online community building is a key role of a the community manager, This role is a fairly new one, and although it has its roots in the roles of those who managed bulletin boards and discussion forums - when they were often known as facilitators - the role is still emerging and evolving. However, the role of a Community Manager is essentially to encourage, foster and support the engagement of participants in the community, although the way this takes place will depend on the nature and purpose of the online community"

"So you want to build an online community? Here's how you do it."

A couple of short videos on communities of practice. The first is from Dave Vance, former president of Caterpillar University, who shares some of Caterpillar's experiences in facilitating online communities of practice. His advice?

Understanding Member Roles and Behaviors We all know that humans will be, well, humans. Just as in offline community spaces, there are a range of behaviors that community hosts will encounter. These mirror offline behaviors, but manifest differently in the text only environment. Without the non-verbal cues, we can misinterpret a person's actions online. Likewise, one voice can be very loud. Good stuff really is great, and difficult stuff can be awful. It helps to understand some of the roles that members take on so you can anticipate and appropriately respond to different situations.

The purpose of your community and the needs of the group will dictate what tools you use and kind of community you build. Internet access, access costs, computer and browser types, geographic and time zone issues all affect the type of community you'll build. If you've got a group of people who all have high Internet connection costs, or who don't have web access, you might be best off using the email, email topic subscription features,and newsletters rather than expecting people to show up and spend (expensive) time in online in conferencing. If you have a geographically diverse group with international time zone disparities, it's hard to get them together for a chat very often, which requires that people show up at the same time and place.

Thinking about building or hosting an online community? Looking for specific tips, tools and ideas? Start here. The following is a collection of articles that may help inform your work. They are all covered by our Creative Commons license which makes the material available with limited restrictions. Check it out. Have something to contribute? Let us know!

Community Member Roles and Types By Nancy White Updated 1/12/01 Every community and online group is different. The purposes vary, the structures are different -- and the people are different. But there are some common participation styles or patterns that have been observed. These can be helpful when you are trying to understand participation patterns in an online interaction space. Take note that for each style, there are attributes that can be seen as both positive and negative. That said, be careful of stereotyping people.

Community of Practice Case Study Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Harold Jarche I'm working on a community of practice for green building technologies and am discussing business community networks here in the Maritimes. I thought it would be a good time to review some lessons from the first online community I was responsible for. The first online community of practice for which I was responsible was a project to enhance collaboration of members of the learning industry here in New Brunwsick, Canada (LearnNB). The initial focus of this CoP was research and development, especially business models and commercialization. It was not intended to be a theoretical or academic community, but one looking at the development of practical applications- be they products, services, standards or models. Membership was open to anyone.

Purpose/Outcome What is the desired outcome for the group? What is the INTENT? Purpose/Outcome # What is the purpose and desired outcome for the group? What is the INTENT? Does it have a mission or a vision that you can communicate to potential members? # Are the benefits measurable and visible to members and potential members? Are the benefits focused on the individual member? The group? # Is the outcome determined by the organizer? Group members? Both? # If the group is part of a larger organization, is it consistent with organizational goals and culture? # Is the group's purpose something that can only be done/accomplished online? Will it replace something offline? Or is it some combination?

Almost the first thing that gets built when anything needs management is a good measurement system. It allows tuning, enables detection of deviations from norm, and gives feedback on the effect of changes and initiatives. Communities of practice are complex creatures, and thus their measurement is not simple. The number of perspectives that can be used is enormous. At the same time, the availability of data for each of them is very different, and the temptation to use subjective management impressions is high. So the history of CoP management is full of references to indicator-building, to attempts at significant reporting, and to a wide variety of more or less objective measurements. But we have not found a coherent, complete set of measurements that could be used to consistently evaluate not just one CoP, but a set of them, and eventually even to benchmark different ones, along most of the lines that can be affected by management. So we've attempted to put forth a simple, practical list and brief explanation of straightforward indicators that can be implemented in most CoPs, and especially in those with an online component. The first result of it is the linked white paper, but it should not be the last one.

Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning Author(s):Stefan Hrastinski (Uppsala University) © 2008 Stefan Hrastinski EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4 (October-December 2008) Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning A study of asynchronous and synchronous e-learning methods discovered that each supports different purposes By Stefan Hrastinski Today's workforce is expected to be highly educated and to continually improve skills and acquire new ones by engaging in lifelong learning. E-learning, here defined as learning and teaching online through network technologies, is arguably one of the most powerful responses to the growing need for education.1 Some researchers have expressed concern about the learning outcomes for e-learners, but a review of 355 comparative studies reveals no significant difference in learning outcomes, commonly measured as grades or exam results, between traditional and e-learning modes of delivery.2

The adult learners we work with face a difficult conundrum: Their social world is constrained by the technologies they know how to use and vice versa: The technologies they know how to use are limited by their social world. For many people, a solo exploration of the online world can be arduous, insecure, and time-consuming. In an age characterized by increasing access to information and communication technologies, and by learning through these technologies, such issues acquire a great significance. This is particularly true when we view learning as a social experience and not one of absorbing information. In this article, we explore a design for learning that includes connecting people across time and distance so that they develop practices for sharing and creating information and knowledge rather than just acquiring it.

Community of Practice Handbook - Company Command Posted on April 10th, 2008 by Harold Jarche company-command.jpg Company Command is the most practical community of practice (CoP) implementation guide that I've read so far. It traces the story of the development of an online community designed to share knowledge between US Army company commanders, past and present. If you can get over the military jargon (and even some acronyms that I, an ex-soldier, couldn't figure out) the lessons in this book are transferable to civilian life. Here is a summary of the key concepts from Chapter One: * Knowledge resides primarily in the minds of community members * Connecting members allows knowledge to flow * Relationships, trust and a sense of a professional community are critical factors for an effective community * Content development emerges from needs expressed in conversations * A decentralized network is best