A Cross-organizational Ecology for Virtual Communities of Practice in Higher Education

ABSTRACT

This work investigates Communities of Practice (CoPs) that support social learning in higher education. While most CoP research has taken place in single-stream contexts (e.g. in a university), this study reports on the ecology of a cross-organizational community (university and industry stakeholders) in the context of the formal curriculum. The work examines the role of technology configurations in supporting CoPs in Design and related studies. It also reports on the type and level of technology adoption, focusing on the learner perspective. This study’s CoP is made up of 21 third-year university students and ten external stakeholders (mentors, clients and industrial experts). The study concludes with a set of guidelines for the design and evaluation of similar CoP technology configurations. Key guidelines suggest a) supporting enhanced awareness of identity, space and time, b) enabling roles and permissions on-demand according to the requirements of the activities carried out in shared spaces and c) facilitating fluid interoperability between the domain-specific and mainstream/generic productivity tools used by the community. The outcomes of this work can assist instructors, researchers and practitioners in the design of similar technology configurations for CoPs in the formal curricula of their respective Design or relevant fields.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Horizon 2020 739578

Notes on contributors

Aekaterini Mavri

Aekaterini Mavri is a PhD candidate and a full-time member of the special teaching staff at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology. Her research focusses on the role of cross-organizational Communities of Practice on learning in the Design and relevant fields in Higher Education.

Andri Ioannou

Andri Ioannou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts and Head of the Cyprus Interaction Lab at the Cyprus University of Technology. She is also the Leader of the Interactive Media and Education/Edutainment research group at the Research Center on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies (RISE). In her work, she aims to understand the significant supportive and mediating role of technology in promoting learning, communication & collaboration, and social change in varied circumstances and contexts.

Fernando Loizides

Fernando Loizides is a Lecturer (Assistant Prof.) in Computer Science and Informatics at Cardiff University. Fernando’s main area of research lies in Information Interaction, HCI and Digital Libraries and Accessibility. He has a computer science background, which he combines with digital library research to investigate how systems can be enhanced by emerging technologies. He has extensive experience in user testing and project management, both within industry and academia.