Earlier this month Jon Dron and I were attending and keynoting at the Networked Learning conference in Maastricht Holland and I had the pleasure of meeting and socializing with Etienne Wenger (of Community of Practice fame) and Maarten de Laat from the Open University of the Netherlands. I also picked up a copy of a very interesting paper, that I comment on below. The report was released last year and covered by a number of bloggers including Steven Downes, but not surprisingly, such information becomes relevant and important when it serves to inform or address a problem or something in my immediate context. The report is especially relevant as we try to document and assess the value of the elgg based social networking system (Athabasca Landing) that we are building to expand distance education to informal learning for students and staff at Athabasca University.
The 56 page report Promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks: a conceptual framework was co-authored by Etienne Wenger, Beverly Trayner and Maarten de Laat and its production was supported by the Dutch Ministry fo Education. The report consists of quite lengthy differentiation between communities (short for Communities of Practice) and networks. These distinctions are not unlike those Jon Dron and I have made (2007), but we prefer to call social entities defined by strong bonds and a commonly felt and articulated sense of common purpose as groups, since communities has so many different meanings and connotations. However, we certainly agree that groups and networks are different social beasts and that a network can develop into a group and vice versa. The report distinguishes the different types of membership, leadership and organizational structure that defines both entities.Read More