Summary of proceedings from the launch symposium, discussion, and proposed action plan for the England Centre for Practice Development’s international community of practice for end of life care

This paper provides a summary of summary of proceedings from the launch symposium, discussion, and proposed action plan for the England Centre for Practice Development’s International Community of Practice for End of Life Care held at The Spitfire Cricket Ground, Canterbury, on the 7th October 2016. It has been disseminated for discussion by members of the international community of practice and more widely for discussion and comment. The action plan and priorities in the document were co-created by attendees at the event including the President of The European Association of Palliative Care and several other international experts in end of life care

Human herpesvirus 6, 7 and 8 in solid organ transplantation- guidelines from the American society of transplantation infectious diseases community of practice

These updated guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Community of Practice of the American Society of Transplantation review the diagnosis, prevention and management of HHV-6A, HHV-6B, HHV-7, and HHV-8 in the pre- and post-transplant period. The majority of HHV-6 (A and B) and HHV-7 infections in transplant recipients are asymptomatic; symptomatic disease is reported infrequently across organs. Routine screening for HHV-6 and 7 DNAemia is not recommended in asymptomatic patients, nor are prophylaxis or preemptive therapy. Detection of viral nucleic acid by quantitative PCR in blood or CSF is the preferred method for diagnosis of HHV-6 and HHV-7 infection. The possibility of chromosomally-integrated HHV-6 DNA should be considered in individuals with persistently high viral loads. Antiviral therapy should be initiated for HHV-6 encephalitis and should be considered for other manifestations of disease. HHV-8 causes Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, and multicentric Castleman disease and is also associated with hemophagocytic syndrome and bone marrow failure. HHV-8 screening and monitoring may be indicated to prevent disease. Treatment of HHV-8 related disease centers on reduction of immunosuppression and conversion to sirolimus, while chemotherapy may be needed for unresponsive disease. The role of antiviral therapy for HHV-8 infection has not yet been defined. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

How healthy is your ‘community of practice’?

This article explores cultural change and situated approaches to learning as a basis for understanding developments in the daily life of the probation organization. These are highlighted in the concept of ‘communities of practice’ that describes learning in the everyday activities of practitioners’ work. It is argued that the future can be changed by greater attention to context specific knowledge-in-use through practitioner research.</p

Sustaining interaction in a mathematical community of practice

This paper focuses on an activity in which students explore sequences through a game, using ToonTalk programming and a web-based collaboration system. Our analytical framework combines theory of communities of practice with domain epistemology. We note three factors which influence the length and quality of interactions: facilitation, reciprocation and audience-awareness

Using theory to inform capacity-building: Bootstrapping communities of practice in computer science education research

In this paper, we describe our efforts in the deliberate creation of a community of practice of researchers in computer science education (CSEd). We understand community of practice in the sense in which Wenger describes it, whereby the community is characterized by mutual engagement in a joint enterprise that gives rise to a shared repertoire of knowledge, artefacts, and practices. We first identify CSEd as a research field in which no shared paradigm exists, and then we describe the Bootstrapping project, its metaphor, structure, rationale, and delivery, as designed to create a community of practice of CSEd researchers. Features of other projects are also outlined that have similar aims of capacity building in disciplinary-specific pedagogic enquiry. A theoretically derived framework for evaluating the success of endeavours of this type is then presented, and we report the results from an empirical study. We conclude with four open questions for our project and others like it: Where is the locus of a community of practice? Who are the core members? Do capacity-building models transfer to other disciplines? Can our theoretically motivated measures of success apply to other projects of the same nature

Creative communities:shaping process through performance and play

This paper studies the use of play as a method to unlock creativity and innovation within a community of practice (a group of individuals who share a common interest and who see value in interaction to enhance their understanding). An analysis of communities of practice and the value of play informs evaluation of two case studies exploring the development of communities of practice, one within the discipline of videogames and one which bridges performing arts and videogames. The case studies provide qualitative data from which the potential of play, as a method to inspire creativity and support the development of a potential community of practice, is recognised. Establishing trust, disruption of process through play and reflection are key steps proposed in a ‘context provider’s framework’ for individuals or organisations to utilise in the design of activities to support creative process and innovation within a potential community of practice

Enabling a community of practice: Fostering social learning between designers and design managers at postgraduate level

This paper discusses the principles and practices of a joint programme of MA Design and Design Management studies at a UK-based university that has encouraged students from different design disciplines to develop a community of practice (COP). It describes the structure of the current MA programmes and how a series of staff initiatives in response to financial and organisational necessity has led to conditions conducive for the emergence of a communities of practice. A community of practice is defined by Wenger and Synder (1999, p.139-140) as a group of people informally bound together by shared expertise or a particular interest. Developing a COP can be a means to generate new ideas, methods and processes (Schlager, Fusco, & Schank, 2002). Building a community of practice is a vital ingredient in the development of a design professional operating in a post-disciplinary design era in which complex problems stretch across traditional disciplines and cultures (Moggridge, 2007). The paper begins by providing a background to the growth and expansion of postgraduate education in the institution and proceeds to describe the structure and delivery of its programmes. It highlights learning opportunities created by teaching staff to facilitate the development of a community of practice. It concludes by presenting a number of challenges faced by programmes in maintaining conducive environments for COP to foster in view of proposed growth

Repositioning academic literacy: charting the emergence of a community of practice

This paper reflects on the experiences of the authors in planning and teaching a short-course in academic literacy for students enrolled in the first year of an education degree. By conceptualising tertiary literacy as a social practice and drawing on a sociocultural approach to learning, the members of the project team were able to move beyond deficit views of individual students towards a consideration of their own teaching practices and how they could best help students expand their literate repertoires. This approach provided opportunities for the team to focus on pedagogical matters and to chart its own emergence as a community of practice working on a shared problem

Knowledge sharing by entrepreneurs in a virtual community of practice (VCoP)

PurposeThis paper examines how entrepreneurs engage in a Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) to share knowledge. Intensity of engagement is taken as a proxy to measure the strength of knowledge sharing.Design/methodology/approachThe archival data spanning over a three-year period from ‘Start-up-Nation©’ (a VCoP purposefully setup for entrepreneurs) is used for analysis. A set of indices are introduced to measure participants’ intensity of engagement in terms of message length, message frequency and reciprocity in the knowledge sharing process. Content analysis is employed to test a sample of ‘highly engaged’, ‘moderately engaged’, ‘low engaged’ and ‘not engaged’ discussion topics as part of the on-line discourse.FindingsWe find that entrepreneurs normally use short (fewer than 100 words) or medium (fewer than 250 words) message size to contribute to the discussions. In addition, we find that senior members and discussion moderators play important roles in igniting the ‘reciprocity’ behaviour in stimulating the interest of the community with the topic discussion. We also findthat highly engaged topics usually lead to further discussion threads.Originality/valueThis is the first study of its kind to explore how entrepreneurs engage in a VCoP to share their knowledge and experiences. The set of measurement indices tested here provide a tool for the owner, designer and moderator of the VCoP to measure the utility of their website in terms of its members’ participation. In addition, the set of textual and subjective interventions identified here enable the moderator (administrator) of a VCoP to design effective interventions to facilitate on-line discourse and augment the knowledge sharing process amongst its community members

Twitter: A Professional Development and Community of Practice Tool for Teachers

This article shows how a group of language teachers use Twitter as a tool for continuous professional development through the #MFLtwitterati hashtag. Based on data collected through a survey (n=116) and interviews (n=11), it describes how this collective of teachers use the hashtag and evaluates the impact of their Twitter network on their teaching practices. The results show that most users try the suggestions and ideas that they find on this network, which have a positive impact on their teaching. Finally, the article assesses whether the hashtag users can be described as a community of practice