Analysing it and communities of practice

The paper discusses the relationship between information technology (IT) and communities of practice. Most studies of information technology design take the professional and business-driven viewpoint, and often focus only on IT and neglect the actual practice IT is serving. This paper analyses IT from a perspective of a non-profit community and its practice, for which IT is subsumed. The paper examines whether Orlikowski’s widely used IS framework can be used in analyzing such settings. The analysis shows that although Orlikowski’s model is capable of grasping many aspects of community IT, it fails to recognize perhaps the most crucial aspect of integrating several practical community levels, the shared object of all activities. In this paper, we propose that by using the cultural-historical activity theory such a problem in analysis can be alleviated

“Fairy rings” of participation: the invisible network influencing participation in online communities

Individuals participate in many different ways in online communities. There is an extensive body of research describing participation as a key metaphor in communities of practice and stressing that participatory mobility is influenced by underground multidirectional activities, directed away from the notion of periphery to the centre practices and taking the shape of expansive swarming and multidirectional pulsations. This article describes an ongoing observational study proposing a model that attempts to determine how users participate in online communities and what influences them to alter the way in which they participate. We performed daily observations on user participatory behaviour in 50 online communities using public domain – anonymous data available in the communities. The specific communities were selected because they are related to learning and support learning activities within their networks. The data observations collected were analysed using Compendium, a hypermedia knowledge mapping and sense-making tool, to represent and structure the data, make complex cross data queries, test hypotheses and build representation of real examples to support our claims. Initial findings indicate that users connect, participate, contribute and collaborate on a shared objective, transferring information and pooling knowledge within and between communities in four different modes. During their online journey, users switched between modes of participation or even remained in one specific mode, implying that the way in which users participate in an online community is not just related to the mode of participation and the level of engagement with the community but it is also due to hidden reasons or motivations, an invisible network of interactions of elements that affect the willingness of the user to participate. This layer is not immediately evident in the user actions but can be inferred by analysing user reactions. It is argued that user participation in online communities occurs in two layers; the “visible” layer of participation with the different modes; and the “invisible” layer of element interactions, similar to formations observed in nature when a radically spreading underground network of fungi activity results in a ring or arc formation of mushrooms, also known as a “fairy ring”. These underground multidirectional activities influence participation and participatory mobility. Following an open scientific inquiry approach and an open research paradigm we plan to share these observations with a wider audience of practitioners, researchers and theorists for all to test or contest our arguments, and to enrich, question, or support our model

Case Study: ENVRI Science Demonstrators with D4Science

Whenever a community of practice starts developing an IT solution for its use case(s) it has to face the issue of carefully selecting “the platform” to use. Such a platform should match the requirements and the overall settings resulting from the specific application context (including legacy technologies and solutions to be integrated and reused, costs of adoption and operation, easiness in acquiring skills and competencies). There is no one-size-fits-all solution that is suitable for all application context, and this is particularly true for scientific communities and their cases because of the wide heterogeneity characterising them. However, there is a large consensus that solutions from scratch are inefficient and services that facilitate the development and maintenance of scientific community-specific solutions do exist. This chapter describes how a set of diverse communities of practice efficiently developed their science demonstrators (on analysing and producing user-defined atmosphere data products, greenhouse gases fluxes, particle formation, mosquito diseases) by leveraging the services offered by the D4Science infrastructure. It shows that the D4Science design decisions aiming at streamlining implementations are effective. The chapter discusses the added value injected in the science demonstrators and resulting from the reuse of D4Science services, especially regarding Open Science practices and overall quality of service

Case study: ENVRI science demonstrators with D4Science

Whenever a community of practice starts developing an IT solution for its use case(s) it has to face the issue of carefully selecting “the platform” to use. Such a platform should match the requirements and the overall settings resulting from the specific application context (including legacy technologies and solutions to be integrated and reused, costs of adoption and operation, easiness in acquir- ing skills and competencies). There is no one-size-fits-all solution that is suitable for all application context, and this is particularly true for scientific communities and their cases because of the wide heterogeneity characterising them. However, there is a large consensus that solutions from scratch are inefficient and services that facilitate the development and maintenance of scientific community-specific solutions do exist. This chapter describes how a set of diverse communities of practice efficiently developed their science demonstrators (on analysing and pro- ducing user-defined atmosphere data products, greenhouse gases fluxes, particle formation, mosquito diseases) by leveraging the services offered by the D4Science infrastructure. It shows that the D4Science design decisions aiming at streamlin- ing implementations are effective. The chapter discusses the added value injected in the science demonstrators and resulting from the reuse of D4Science services, especially regarding Open Science practices and overall quality of service

Looking at public spaces in contemporary Rome: an anthropological perspective on the study of cities

Through the presentation of two case studies this paper aims to engage the theoretical debate on the persistence of public space in the contemporary city, and focuses the attention on the way people practice these spaces and on the policies which are regulating their uses. Starting from the description of different ways in which some urban spaces in Rome (Italy) are used by two different communities of people, one mainly composed by immigrants and the other by young city users, and the diverse ways in which their different practices are seen and tolerated, the aim of this paper is to reflect on public spaces. Observing how city users practice public spaces, and analysing the way in which these practices are considered, are particularly exciting perspectives that can offer an interesting vision of the spatial and social reality of the city and of hegemonic relations which govern it

Communities of practice, intergration, and recurrent interaction patterns

The objective of this paper is to contribute to understanding knowledge integration. The guiding question is 'What are the mechanisms underlying knowledge integration?' By knowledge integration we mean solving the problem raised by specialization: Specialization leads to a dispersion of specialized bodies of knowledge that are held by different specialists. Knowledge integration refers to how this drawing on different bodies of specialized knowledge is organized. The paper is organized in three main parts. First, we analyze what the problem of knowledge integration consists in, how it can be approached, and what mechanisms are underlying the approaches. Subsequently, we supply an empirical and a conceptual anchoring to our understanding. Finally, we propose to answer the question how to use such an understanding in analysing knowledge integration by focussing the analysis on communities of practice as the most adapted level of analysis for analysing knowledge integration, and on 'recurrent interaction patterns' within and between such communities. Such a focus would centure on one of the most important mechanisms for providing knowledge integration, it would be on a solid conceptual grounding, and it also is a practical approach that can be implemented. Keywords: knowledge flows, knowledge integration, communities of practice, recurrent interaction patterns, routine

Logistic modelling of smallholder livestock farmers’ adoption of tree-based fodder technology in Zimbabwe

Based on field data collected from 131 small scale dairy farmers that were randomly selected from four agro-ecological zones, this study assessed the potential of adoption of fodder bank technology as a means for improving livestock production and income generation for smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. Using a logit modelling approach, it also identified the drivers of adoption of the technology by analysing the influence of household characteristics and ecological factors on farmers’ decision to adopt the technology. The model correctly predicted 75% of observed adoption and non-adoption by farmers. Results reveal that dairy herd size, land holding size, membership of dairy association and agro-ecological potential are the key factors influencing farmers’ adoption of fodder bank. Age, sex, household size and educational level of farmers play lesser role. Male and female farmers were equally likely to take up and practice fodder bank if they are given equal access to information and incentives. The study recommends farmer-led extension approaches where farmers who possess certain key characteristics should constitute the initial group for disseminating information regarding the technology in rural communities. The results highlight the importance of access to dairy product markets as a driver for the adoption of fodder banks. It is recommended that forging a strategic partnership with the Dairy Development Programme (DDP) will offer high potential for enhancing the scaling up of the adoption and impact of fodder bank technology in the country.Livestock Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Activity theory: A framework for analysing intercultural academic activity

This article suggests that Activity Theory (AT) can be applied as a holistic framework to analyse the complex sociocultural issues that arise when academics wish to engage in collaborative activity across institutional and cultural boundaries. Attention will initially focus on how Activity Theory, first formulated in the 1930s by Leont’ev (1978), and subsequently developed into a second generation by Engeström (1987), can help to analyse and illuminate the inherent complexity within any one community of practice. A more elaborate model of AT (Engeström, 2001) is currently being developed and applied to analyse and illuminate collaborative activity across institutional boundaries, so as to transform discourse communities into speech communities of practice through expansive learning. It is suggested that this ‘third generation’ model can be further refined to analyse specific contact zones, within and between activity systems, as a precursor to undertaking collaborative activity. It is suggested that, when discourse communities deriving from different culturally diverse traditions seek to work together, such an a priori analysis would enable potential areas for miscommunication and misconstrual to be identified and possibly resolved before collaborative activity actually commences

Identifying communities of practice: analysing ontologies as networks to support community recognition

Communities of practice are seen as increasingly important for creating, sharing and applying organisational knowledge. Yet their informal nature makes them difficult to identify and manage. In this paper we set out ONTOCOPI, a system that applies ontology-based network analysis techniques to target the problem of identifying such communities