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Communities of Practice
“The iCohere technology platform provides the tools we need to build, nurture, and move our technical Communities of Practice into strategic impact. The platform is stable, easy to access, intuitive for users, simple and yet powerful for administrators to configure.
We use a ladder of activities for developing our technical CoPs that starts with information sharing, moves to synchronous conversation, and then builds both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, including voice, presentations, screen sharing and public discussion sites. iCohere provides the full range of tools to accomplish this process and the tools can be selected to fit the reality of global connectivity challenges in countries around the world.
The people of iCohere are consummate professionals, impressive in their quick responses, and clearly share a common set of values with us on building learning communities across distance and subject domains. They are a joy to work with and always are ready to consider ideas and options from their clients for tools that may be needed in the next upgrade. ”
William O. Lowrey, Ph.D.
Director of Peacebuilding and Team Leader for technical Communities of Practice (tCoP)
World Vision International
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Key Features
- The Collaboration Café provides an online space for people to introduce themselves, share pictures and stories, discuss hot topics, trade best practices, tour communities and visit organizations.
- Simple Administration Tools let you create and give access rights to groups and subgroups, such as strategic planning committees, task-focused and regional work groups, leadership committees, expert panels, learning groups and funder forums.
- Membership profiles provide a secure and safe space where members can share their personal, professional and educational experiences for ongoing relationship building and professional networking.
- Web Forms is a survey tool that allows community participants to gather structured data, including case studies, stories and satisfaction surveys.
- Webinars and streaming PowerPoint presentation capabilities provide the tools for educational events and technical assistance.
- The Resource Library is a repository where members can upload articles, reports and white papers, relevant research, toolkits, guides and templates.
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Approach
Building a successful Community of Practice (CoP) requires more than using robust technology. It's a collaborative process that calls for clear direction and skillful facilitation. In contrast to simple online discussion groups, true CoPs are structured to support purposeful groups focused on advancing knowledge, elevating personal and organizational effectiveness and generating tangible results.
iCohere provides a platform for building, engaging and sustaining collaborative Communities of Practice.
By creating focused, intentional connections across geographies, time zones, business functions and cultures, CoPs use the collective knowledge of the group to arrive at new ideas to move organizations forward.
We have been building, fine-tuning and enhancing Communities of Practice since 2001, when CoPs were in their infancy. We understand the strategies that work and those that don't. We help you define your CoP's objectives and explore ways to fully engage your members.
We work closely with you to customize your CoP to:
- Capture knowledge, ideas, and innovations.
- Launch Professional and Social Networks in a benefit-oriented environment.
- Share best practices.
- Use the intelligence of the group to solve problems quickly.
- Cultivate Professional Development.
- Reduce Administrative and Travel Costs by streamlining communications.
Our web community software integrates critical community-focused features into a single user-friendly and secure environment. Our software and our approach draw on the strengths of your community in four key areas: Relationship Building, Collaborative Learning, Collaborative Knowledge Sharing, and Project Collaboration. Typically, these areas are integrated within a set of transformational strategies and engaging face-to-face and online facilitation:
Our CoP platform blends traditional features like online discussions, instant messaging, document management and searchable member profiles with simple yet powerful tools — like web conferencing and streaming PowerPoint presentation capabilities — to energize and sustain the focus of your community.
Resources
- PPCI Conference Presentation, March 2010
Supporting Professional Education through a Web-Based CoP
Presentation by Mary Ellen Nevins, Ed.D., National Director Professional Preparation in Cochlear Implants
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