Communities of practice – internal

Abstract

A Community of Practice can be described as a network of people emerging spontaneously, and held together by informal relationships and common purpose, that shares common knowledge or a specific domain, expertise and tools, and learn from one another. van Wyk, 2005, 92 COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (CoPs) have been discussed in a number of sectors such as business, education and health and they are common in LKS. In fact we are all probably members of formal or informal communities of practice, even if we don't define them in this way. One problem with the literature is that definitions are varied and have evolved over time; however members of a CoP generally share common goals and motivations (Kimble and Hildreth, 2005). They can be created within a single organization, and often these CoPs are influenced by management goals and may be linked to the overall knowledge management (KM) strategy. Example from practice: the Academic Library Service at the University of Pretoria (van Wyk, 2005) The Academic Library Service at the University of Pretoria includes a collection of service units. Through interviews and focus groups, two types of CoP were identified: Cross-organizational CoPs and internal CoPs. Cross-organizational CoPs are: Knowledge Management Practitioners Group of Pretoria; Gaelic Cataloguers and Technical Services Working Group; African Goats Group. Internal CoPs are: Information Specialists Group; Digital Repositories Group; Information Network for E-Information Experts. van Wyk (2005) found that these CoPs enabled members to work smarter, share knowledge and feel part of a wider network. They were also beneficial to the organization, as they helped to embed knowledge within the organization and avoid the loss of tacit information when individuals left. They also spread ideas across the organization and enabled innovation. Whilst there are many benefits to organizational CoPs, van Wyk (2005) outlines a number of critical factors which can threaten the success of organizational CoPs. Management support, time to participate, workload, incentives, size of the CoP, trust and motivation can all provide challenges to a community of practice.