Community software platform for distance and blended elearning

Creating Communities for
Collaboration and Learning

Soren Kaplan, Managing Director, iCohere.
Peter Bartlett, e-Community Organizer, Hewlett-Packard

Most learning professionals today agree that "community" represents an increasingly important trend in e-learning, blended learning, and ultimately, organizational learning. The challenge is that the meaning of "community" has become ambiguous. Communities come by many names – learning communities, knowledge communities, e-communities, corporate communities, and communities of practice, among others. In addition, the concept is often further diluted through being equated to technology such as discussion boards, chat rooms, etc.

The argument for building communities usually goes something like this: since about 70% of what an employee needs to know is learned outside of formal training programs (e.g., on the job, through informal mentoring, through networks of personal relationships, etc.), and since organizations are increasingly reliant on distributed groups of employees and partners to get work done, a new approach for enabling learning and collaboration is now required. For learning professionals, the question usually isn’t whether building communities will benefit the organization, but rather what kind of community is appropriate and what are the steps involved in building it.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, a community is "any group living in the same area or having interests, work, etc. in common." While the geographic assumption underlying this definition may no longer be valid, one thing is clear: communities can be small or large, co-located or online, and often possess similar structures and characteristics – their members interact together over time, are held together by a common purpose, possess distinct roles, rely on trust as the basis of their interactions, and share a sense of history.

Types of Collaborative Groups

In our work as community-builders, consultants, and as learning professionals, we have seen four types of collaborative groups that relate to the strategic objectives and responsibilities of many typical training functions (our model assumes the broadest definition of the learning professional role, including stand-up trainer, e-learning architect, and organizational development consultant). While by no means mutually exclusive, these four groups represent people who come together primarily for any one of four distinct reasons:

to affiliate (affinity networks)
to learn (learning communities)
to practice (communities of practice)
to take action (project teams)

These groups vary in their orientations toward relationship, learning, and task– all communities include each, though their emphases vary. Affinity networks tend to be the most relationship focused since their existence is predicated primarily on the common personal attributes and preferences of its members. Learning communities are focused on a specific learning outcome, with relationship and task a necessary part of achieving the learning outcome. Communities of practice represent a relatively equal mix of relationship, learning, and task orientation while project teams are predominantly task oriented, though relationships and learning are indeed important for bonding the team together.

	Affinity Networks
	Affinity networks are groups of people who are drawn together based on one or more shared personal attributes. Their activities are highly relationship oriented, and typically include networking, mentoring, and representing a collective voice in both organizational and external community affairs. While some organizations formally acknowledge and sponsor these groups’ activities, when they don’t, these networks often emerge on their own. Employee clubs are notable examples. Other examples include "employee associations", like at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), which sponsors five employee groups including the Asian, Black, Filipino, Hispanic, and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual associations. As a strategy to strengthen communications among and between employees and customers, PG&E supports these groups as they volunteer as translators in crises, raise scholarship money for women and minorities, participate in community outreach, and contribute to PG&E’s diversity programs.

	Learning Communities
	Learning communities are the most closely connected to traditional training. They represent communities of learners that may rely on face-to-face and/or online interactions to share experiences, stories, network, and learn from each other over time. For trainers and e-learning professionals, learning communities are one of the best opportunities to create "blended solutions" that move learning beyond the classroom. Often facilitated by a trainer or consultant, these groups may come together both prior to and after a face-to-face event. The online community provides "context" prior to the event and then allows for mentoring, collaboration, and closure following the in-person gathering. For example, Hewlett-Packard has recently extended its two day executive leadership training to include an eight-week online forum for tracking leaders’ progress toward learning goals.

	Communities of Practice
	Communities of practice (CoPs) are groups of people who possess a common interest in sharing, learning about, and advancing a specific domain of knowledge. According to the American Productivity and Quality Center, CoPs "are driven by a desire and need to share problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools, and best practices" . While some CoPs revolve around specific business functions, others are focused on building and diffusing knowledge across diverse groups of employees, or even across companies. SBC Pacific Bell, for example, provides both in-person training and an online community for almost 2000 affiliates involved in the sales of its telecommunications services. These key partners integrate SBC’s offerings into broader telecom solutions for their clients and, subsequently, require the most current sales, support, and technical resources to be successful. SBC’s online community supplements the face-to-face sales and support training offered to its affiliates by providing a secure web-based environment in which partners can access information, surface problems, connect with subject matter experts, and contribute and share best practices.

	Project Teams
	The Gartner Group forecasts that by 2005, 80% of all global knowledge work will be delivered by virtual project teams . Virtual teams are groups of people that work together but are physically apart. Their activities are often time-bound – they come together to accomplish a specific task and when their objective is met, they disband, with members joining other newly forming project teams. Unlike affinity groups or communities of practice, virtual teams often have a discrete lifespan that’s tied to specific business deliverables. Learning professionals are faced with a significant opportunity to capture and diffuse process and content-related knowledge and best practices related to the activities of virtual teams. From a process perspective, the methodology for quickly and efficiently assembling, launching, building, managing, and reallocating virtual team resources is a growing capability critical for most organizations’ success in the coming years. From a content perspective, ensuring that new knowledge is captured and shared across teams is essential for enabling organizations to continue to learn from successes and failures.

Implications for Learning Professionals

Does your company have a chief learning officer? Does your training organization view knowledge management as a critical success factor? Do your learning professionals have competencies in organizational development? If you can answer "yes" to any of these questions, you are likely positioned to undertake community-building activities.

So where do you start? Creating communities requires a multidisciplinary approach. Whether building an affinity network, facilitating a learning community, coordinating a community of practice, or working with a project team, sensitivity to the interrelationship of learning, knowledge management, and organizational development (including knowledge of business strategy and group behavior) are critical. An understanding of how technology can play an enabling role in supporting the group is also important since most communities tend to rely on various online tools as a means of communication and knowledge sharing

Learning communities represent the most logical starting point for most training organizations. They can be sanctioned and implemented from within the department as a natural extension of existing programs. Since many training functions have already incorporated some form of blended learning into their existing strategies, including community tools may not require much internal selling.

While learning groups may be the lowest hanging fruit for training departments, creating communities of practice are one of the more strategic contributions that can be made. The challenge with CoPs is that they can be difficult to build and manage – ongoing senior level business sponsorship is essential, participation is usually voluntary, and the ultimate success of the community may be tied to just several participants who represent thought leaders within the organization. If you can answer "yes" to all of the questions posed above, you are in a much stronger position to champion and build communities of practice.

Strategic and Tactical Approaches

Learning professionals must address a variety of issues that have implications for the readiness of their organizations to embrace communities. Some of the strategic questions and issues to consider include:


	Business Issues – What role does your group play in your organization – is your role strictly to deliver stand-up courses, or are you able to define how your company can become a "learning organization"?

	Sponsorship Issues – Do you have relationships with business leaders across the organization that can help you overcome roadblocks to building communities across the organization?

	Capability Issues– Can you pull together people with skills in organizational development, e-learning, knowledge management, and technology to get the job done

	Technology Issues – Are you able to influence or even drive business unit or enterprise technology decisions to support your strategic learning programs?

From a tactical perspective, different groups require different supporting processes and technologies. The following table summarizes the four different types of collaborative groups, outlines the fundamental purpose that bonds the group together, and describes the key supporting processes and technologies that should be considered when creating and building each type of "collaborative environment". Learning professionals who are keenly aware of these differences can anticipate issues and challenges, and create and facilitate online environments targeted at achieving specific business objectives and providing a measurable return on investment (ROI) for the organization.

Description:
Affinity Networks	Learning Communities	Communities of Practice	Project Teams
Comprised of people who share common characteristics and derive value from building relationships based on their shared interests. Often involves peer mentoring and a structure to help create connections that lead to personal and professional opportunities.	Comprised of people who come together for a single primary purpose – to learn. Participation is usually time-bound and often involves strong guidance or facilitation.	Typically organized around a domain of knowledge or specific content area. Comprised of people focused on sharing information and best practices to solve specific problems and achieve personal and collective results. May spawn project teams to address unique business challenges.	A task-oriented group established to achieve specific objectives. Participation is usually time-bound.
Examples:
Professional Networking Organizations Membership Associations Employee Networks	Distance Education Blended Learning Courses Online Conferences	Distributed business functions (R&D, sales, training, etc.) Cross-company practices (e.g. product dev.)	Task forces Committees Cross-organizational programs
Purpose:
Affiliation Self-selection based on personal identification	Learning Shared development objectives	Practice Knowledge building and problem solving	Action Specific goal or deliverable
Key Supporting Processes:
Facilitating networking & relationship building Supporting sub-groups and interest group activities Providing resources appropriate to the specific affiliation Organizing periodic virtual and face-to-face meetings Identifying and representing a collective viewpoint in social, organizational or political arenas	Defining and providing the right mix of traditional learning methods and technology (e.g., blended learning) to meet the defined learning objectives Customizing an asynchronous environment that supports individual and group learning Engaging people in online interactions and facilitating dialogue	Securing formal and ongoing sponsorship for the community Creating a self-managing environment Providing opportunities for linking in-person meetings to online activities Facilitating networking & relationship building Supporting sub-groups and interest group activities Capturing and transforming knowledge into formal and practical intellectual assets	Establishing group norms, roles and processes Linking specific work objectives and deliverables to group processes Linking group processes to supporting technology Coordinating tasks and group interactions Monitoring performance and milestones
Key Supporting Technologies:
Core "Community" focused tools including asynchronous discussion areas, chat, etc. Basic document management Email Polls & surveys Supporting Synchronous web conferencing tools for periodic online events Instant messaging	Core Synchronous web conferencing tools Streaming audio and video Basic document management Asynchronous discussions Email Supporting Document collaboration Chat Instant messaging	Core Asynchronous discussion areas Expert search Document management Knowledge management Email Supporting Synchronous web conferencing tools for periodic online events Document collaboration Instant messaging	Core Project management tools Workflow tools Document versioning & management Synchronous web conferencing tools Email Supporting Calendaring Instant messaging

Conclusion

Learning professionals today are faced with many options for fostering collaborative learning. Any analysis should begin with an understanding of the context in which these technologies will be used, including the fundamental purpose that bonds the group together and how different supporting processes and technologies will contribute to achieving individual and group learning objectives.

Building communities as a learning strategy requires consideration of business-, political-, human resource-, and technology-related issues. While some learning professionals may be well positioned to build communities that span the organization and contribute to the strategic knowledge- and best-practice-sharing goals of the business, others may need to first build community into traditional delivery models