The reality of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber community

Abstract

Groupware is often regarded as an important tool for facilitating team collaboration. However, most theoretical findings are obtained by using students as subjects. We are interested in knowing the practicability of groupware embedded in a professional community of practice. To gain insights into the reality of knowledge sharing and creation through collaborative technologies in a real setting, we recruited teachers from a teachers' professional cyber community to form special interest groups and conducted three phases of on-job training projects using the grounded action research approach. Teachers from primary and junior high schools were mediated by groupware technology and learned to design lesson plans collaboratively. Various data sources such as system logs, group memories, interviews, and questionnaires were also collected. Through these three phases, we identify several types of processes of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in the professional cyber community, defined by the causal conditions, action/interaction strategies, and consequences. Some phenomena identified through these three phases are elaborated in this study.