Dear all,

A lot has been writtern on the topic of CoP's. However, I wonder whether there is a sort of classification of CoP's regarding the type of knowledge that is exchanged and the purpose for which it is exchanged?

If you do have any experience in contributing to a CoP can you provide us with some anadotical evidence?

Best regards,

Remko Helms
Utrecht University
The Netherlands

Hi Remko,

I'd say IMHO there is serious difference between many sorts of CoPs along the guidelines you propose:

- "Pro" or advanced communities, where high subject knowledge is required, are very different creatures from "prosumer" or "enthusiast" CoPs. The more prized the information, the more skittish the people: they may be ready to help out a bit, but often refuse to become the free support service for another fee-charging professional.

- Restricted or confidential CoPs, where content is of a sensitive nature, form a different type of bonds.

- Loosely practice-related CoPs, where the face-to-face and social elements are heavy, are quite different from more practice- and project- oriented CoPs, especially those that are completely online.

- Inter company or "free" CoPs are very different animals from "in-company" CoPs, where hierarchy interferes and anonimity is impossible.

So, the type of information and the purpose of the exchange do determine many things in the CoP. And viceversa: some behaviours in CoPs will encourage certain types of information and of participant, with their own goals.

Best regards,

Miguel

Dear All
I am conducting some research into Electronic Networks of Practice (ENoPs). I am interested in determing if the structure of the electronic network affects the knowledge outcomes for participants. Social network theory suggests that it would. I wish to apply social network theory concepts in order to determine the ENoP structure e.g. density, connectedness, graph-theoretic distance ect. The problem i'm having is that these measures are designed to detect the presence of interaction between individuals. This would be fine for a face-to-face CoP, however in the virtual world all members interact automatically with everyone else and are only 'one click away' from each other. Thus i am not sure if these concepts from social network theory are relevant for an ENoP.

One option is just to ignore the fact that all members are directly connected electronically, and just measure the direct interactions between participants. But would this me a valid measure of the structure of an electronic community?

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Eoin Whelan
NUI Galway
Ireland

Hi Eoin,

far too long since I last was in Limerick :-).

IMHO you can't ignore the many-to-many messages when mapping exchanges. So many participants hardly engage in direct, backchannel conversations. Of course it's much more difficult to measure the many-to-many exchanges, but depending on the tool used it's not totally impossible.

For instance, when two people write in the same topic within a forum, that should count as a conversation in a shared environment. Of course there will be topics read and not answered, but that is not the same thing. Some other forum tools allow you to know who read which message, thus improving accuracy.

Still (IMHO again) network analysis won't give you the real impact of online CoPs, only a measure of the activity of the core, and an approximate one at that.

Best regards,

Miguel

Miguel
Thanks for your feedback. You hit on something I never thought of. By focusing on forums which show what participants read what messages, I think it would be possible to gain a more measurement of the structure of the network.

Thanks again

Eoin