Engagement in other activities related to community development

 

During the research phase of the project I engaged in a number of conversations and activities with other people interested in online communities.

 

Consultation with other community coordinators

I was invited to participate in meetings and behind-the-scenes discussions with members of the Co-op Learning Community team as they prepared for their community launch (SFU's Co-operative Education Learning Community, n.d.). The co-op project had undergone an extensive development phase and it was a useful exercise to share resources and ideas and to learn from their experiences Our meetings were a mutual exchange of ideas and experiences.

A new online educator community was launched fall 2004 through BCcampus (BCcampus, n.d.). This community is open to employees in the BC post-secondary education system, and other individuals by request. A meeting with Paul Stacey of BCcampus was arranged to share and compare plans for the BCcampus Ed Tech Community and SCoPE, and to explore ways to bridge our community activities.  

 

Workshops

In the fall, 2004 I joined CPSquare, an online community of practice described as the “town square for connecting leading community practitioners from around the world”  (CPSquare, n.d.). During September and October I and participated in an 8-week online workshop facilitated by Etienne Wenger, John Smith, and Bronwyn Stuckey. The workshop, Foundations of Communities of Practice, consisted of 32 participants, 12 of whom were returning in the roles of workshop mentor, network analyzer, or facilitator/coach. The workshop was extremely active and rich with resources, dialogue, and opportunities to learn from experts in the field as well as from people with interesting backgrounds either actively working in online communities or just getting started. Here is an email message sent to my colleague Elizabeth Wallace  on September 6, 2004, my first day of the workshop. It captures my enthusiasm and also how I was constantly noticing design elements in the context of my own community design project:

Just started the CPSquare Workshop with Etienne Wenger today. I just want to share one thing that really impressed me. At this site there's a "who's here" feature on the site which individuals can turn off and on. There is also a "send a live message" feature, which is essentially a web-based instant messenger tool. Immediately after I posted my intro message I received a "live message" from one of the volunteer mentors giving me a personal welcome and commenting on my post. Okay, that's really about 5 things that impressed me, but they all add up to a really good way to welcome newcomers.

A particularly memorable and valuable component of the Foundations Workshop for me was a group project. Participants initiated the project topics and groups self-organized according to interests. Naturally I was keen to work on a project related to designing and preparing to host an online community. A group of 5 quickly formed around that theme, and we took a lead from Etienne Wenger to anchor our discussion on the 'design a little practice a lot' rationale. Our group ultimately developed a set of questions intended to encourage consideration of key elements of community design. These questions were framed around design, metaphor, interface, start-up tools, and activities. We then each responded to the questions to create a matrix of design considerations from a variety of contexts.

 

The following is the questions we developed for the matrix, and my responses.

 

Community Design Considerations

 

Describe the CoP you are planning for.    

 

• eLearning Practitioners (educators, administrators, researchers, developers, students)

What are the boundaries, values and objectives of the community?    

 

• To bring together people who share an interest in elearning research and practice, and to offer opportunities for dialogue across disciplines, geographical borders, professions, levels of expertise, and education sectors.

How many members will be able to - and will actually - participate in dialog and activities?    

 

• Up to 30 in a single activity

Does the community have a social history and/or a core of members to build on?    

 

• There are a couple core groups to build on: 1. Faculty and staff at Simon Fraser University who are currently engaged in similar activities, but not in an online environment. 2) Members of the Global Educators' Network which is no longer active

What technologies will be most effective in serving the communication needs of this community?    

 

• To begin with, asynchronous discussions and a resource repository. The resources should be rich... not just links.

Will different levels of member engagement be served by the design and process of the community environment?    

 

• Scheduled seminars that are free and open to the public, ongoing discussion spaces for Q&A, project/special interest groups, focus groups, job opportunities,

What will leadership and responsibility structures, training, and incentives look like?    

 

• The Project Coordinator will facilitate development and implementation. The Community Coordinator is responsible for the design and day-to-day operations, responding to needs of the community. Individual members will take on leadership tasks. A Writer will prepare summaries, highlights, etc and showcase members' work and discussion outcomes.

What will sponsorship and communication between community and sponsors look like?    

 

• To seek sponsorship an outline of benefits to the sponsor will be prepared. This will emphasize the community members and what they have to contribute.

How might metaphors improve engagement in the CoP environment?    

 

• We distinguished between site metaphors, and task metaphors in our initial design meeting. The general consensus was that site metaphors can go badly! And that it would not be appropriate for a membership that might be enthusiastic or sceptics. Meaningful task-oriented metaphors will assist with navigation, but must not jeopardize efficiency.

What values and aspects of diversity would you need to consider to arrive at a metaphor(s) acceptable to all?    

 

• An international audience is anticipated, so meaningful metaphors will be a challenge. For self-selected groups we attempt to work together to develop metaphors that are meaningful for that group.

List 3 possible themes including community names, spaces, and titles that could be tested.    

 

• Centre for Dialogue (a campus building exists with this name) Round Table, JIT (Just in time, for Q&A), Mutual Help (for community/tools help), Brown Bag Session, Development Lab.

How would you validate the acceptance of metaphors?    

 

• Involve a group of members in choosing metaphors, and in validating their acceptance. A plan for introducing and validating metaphors will include focus group and issues around metaphors, and other design decisions, will be revisited frequently.

How could you use the communication channels available to members to augment participation?    

 

• Options to receive and respond to forum discussion via email, seminar progress updates by email, RSS feeds, event blogs

What options can be provided for people to insure that they get the most possible value from their membership in the community?    

 

• Attention to how member contributions are organized and showcased. Some events will be organized as a series to continue to reflect and build on earlier discussion topics.

What is the reasonable amount of time (per day, per week) that prospective members should be asked to spend in active participation?    

 

• There will be a variety of activities, and participation expectations will vary. The community activities are organized to accommodate busy lifestyles. Reading along is also acceptable.

What are the minimum and optimum numbers of active participants that will make the community work?  

 At least 300, which will be a mix of active and occasional participants.

In June 2005, four members of the Learning and Instructional Development Centre received funding to participate in a 4-week Online Communities in Higher Education workshop offered through iCohere (iCohere, n.d.). The timing for the workshop was ideal because we had just selected Moodle as a platform and had begun planning for launch. During this workshop we were able to work directly in our prototype environment and envision the design. One project required that we create several personas and write a community newsletter dated one year into the future (Wallace, Severson, Dayes, & Currie, 2005) Figure 3 shows the newsletter portion.

 

Figure 3 A fictitious newsletter

Education Matters

Your SCOPE Community Newsletter

June Issue, 2006

In This Issue

.............

1. Community Reflections Series: It *is* who you know!

2. New Member Profile

3. Upcoming Events

4. Gems from the Tip Meister

5. All About EM

1. Community Reflections Series: It *is* who you know!

Never in her wildest dreams did Taffy Williams think her job search would end the day it started, nor did she think her work would allow her to spend so much time with her family in her home town of Swansea. Taffy reflects on her introduction to SCOPE. "I stumbled upon SCoPE through Stephen Downe's blog, and proceeded to browse some of the past discussions and events. I knew immediately that I was in the right crowd. It just felt right...friendly, open, enthusiastic, people discussing big issues and ideas in education." Taffy created her account and profile, and posted an introductory message in the Gazebo, highlighting her immediate purpose for joining: To find work! "The rest is history" Taffy reflects. "It turned out my desire to find work was shared by hundreds of members. The surge of responses to my post resulted in a new discussion area just to talk about job searching, and how our ideas about jobs and careers are beginning to shift. We found that most people really didn't want jobs, they wanted work."

But how do you go about finding work when most leads are to 9 to 5 jobs in a concrete building? Taffy's interest in this question shaped a business plan for Net Working, a company that offers tools, services, and community support to individuals seeking work that doesn't require relocating and commuting. "The model emphasizes peer-to-peer support and sharing through social networking tools such as webblogs, RSS, de.li.cious, furl, and so on. It's an astounding success! Just like SCoPE, it builds on the idea of members helping members. This is proof -- when it comes to advancing in your profession, it *is* who you know." Taffy conducts weekly tours of Net Working here in SCoPE. Check out the community calendar for details.

2. New Member Profile

Sam Roberts is a graduate student and teaching assistant at Super Duper University. He recently joined the online community in the hopes of finding some quick ideas to improve his teaching this semester, but most of all he is interested in learning from more experienced instructors. Sam jokes, "A million dollars goes to the first person who can summarize all this social constructivist learning theory business in one page! People keep telling me that the answers to my teaching dilemmas will come from a better understanding of learning theory, but I'm having a hard time getting up to speed quickly." Fortunately for Sam, he has already connected with a SCoPE mentor from Fun and Fabulous University. We can be sure there won't be a million dollars exchanged! We all look forward to an update from Sam as he prepares for the next semester.

3. Upcoming Events

insert calendar feed

4. Gems from the Tip Meister

Bernie Hart has volunteered to take on the role of keeping our Monthly Technical Tip column alive. So many members have expressed their appreciation for these tips that give them instant ideas for implementation into their teaching and community life. Bernie muses that of all people, he has become the Tip Meister: "A year ago I was a 2-finger typist, and not a very good one at that! Now people are knocking on my door asking for ideas to engage their students, to manage project work, to prepare for engaging synchronous sessions, you name it." Bernie has developed a passionate interest for advancing elearning practice and research. "I'm just fortunate to have the time to pursue this passion, and help others who share it."

bla bla bla tips tips tips

5. All About EM

Education Matters is a monthly community newsletter. To read past issues or subscribe bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla Please distribute freely bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

 This exercise was useful for documenting several things we were hoping to achieve:

• A developmental model for roles within the community.
• Clear value to community members.
• Showcase achievements in the community.
• Mutual exchange of sharing and services.
• Take advantage of emerging technologies.
• Create a warm and welcoming atmosphere.
• Rely on word-of-mouth to promote what we do.

 

The current SCoPE newsletter: MicroSCoPE is very similar in format to this prototype. As part of the iCohere workshop we also reviewed and analyzed a number of cases. It was useful to review communities as visitors and address some basic questions, such as: How are decisions made in this community? How would you characterize the community's culture? The SCoPE team had demonstrated a variety of prototyping experiences and we were selected to present at a future iCohere workshop so that our experiences could become a  case for others to study.