COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT AND USER                                                     ENGAGEMENT                                                                              Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Whatsapp, Reddit, e-learning, Blackboard, Moodle, BlikBoo are all online communities. Have you ever wondered what an online community actually is? There are several theories out there that explain this environment in more detail and I'd like to introduce you to the two following ones:

1) Community of Practice &  2) Community of Inquiry                                


                                   Community of Practice (CoP)

Community of practise is in simple words ‘turning conversations into collaboration’. Etienne Wenger is a co-author of the book ‘Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge’ (2002). He is known as a social learning theorist and researcher. 

There are three fundamental elements that form knowledge management strategy[1]:

Domains- identity of the community which is established by area of knowledge. Ettiene demonstrates that community of practice is often misunderstood concept. This theory is about forming personal network but with a goal of exploration and development of the area or field of practise/expertise. 

Community- personal network that belong to the domain. This means online communities are only the ‘tools’ that enable community to develop relationship among each other, share knowledge and address problems. In order to start this process, all three elements have to meet. 

Practice- ‘knowledge’ or user-generated content that is shared on the domain by the community.. The content should be explored in depth as that has a power to accumulate practical knowledge to change community behaviour in ability to act either collectively or individually.

The only important characteristics or requirement for each member of the community is knowledge. Full cycle of the activities within the doughnut has to be fulfilled and integrated in order to enhance mutual engagement between the community members.

Ettiene demonstrates that people organize their social presence as a place where all can engage and learn.

He uses the term ‘learning partnership’ as described in ‘New pedagogies’ by Michael Fullan, which in Community of Practice means if people are engaged with others in the same practise by sharing what they’re experiencing and learning they can recognise themselves as partners. Engaging in a similar practise gives them a sense of recognition as practitioners through ‘learning contract’ that has been established between them. Community of practice establishes on-going relationship among people who have a potential of helping each other when they need to. Ettiene describes having a challenge (or problem) becomes curriculum of the learning partnership between community members (e.g. confusion leads a community member to ask specific question to other community members and therefore resolve it or see solutions from different perspective). When other members of the community join conversation, there is all of the sudden knowledge-sharing experience or knowledge-creation, in other words, effective learning. Very important point is that Communities of Practice (blogs, discussion forums, file-sharing) are only tools for the learning partnership; they are not substitute to Community of Practice. Therefore, knowledge-sharing process is only successful when community members are engaged in producing content and subsequently establish social partnership among each other. This creates sense of belonging and identity that members share. ‘Knowing is not merely an individual experience, but one of exchanging and contributing to the knowledge of a community.’ (Etienne Wenger, 2000)[2] Ettienne interprets this quote as human communities accumulating their knowledge and learning experience. This means that the theory Community of Practice applies not just only to an online environment but also everyday life situations where people meet and exchange their knowledge in a field of expertise they’re all connected to.

Let's apply this theory into the higher education- the main reason why students should interact with each other is because of stimulation as every field/ course they’re currently completing is too complex to cover for an individual at any academic level. Members of any community will only use a resource if they find personal value in participating. ‘Knowledge shouldn’t be in isolation but in constant development’ (Ettienne, 2002)[3].

One of the most important notes is that community members need guidance or support to function optimally, and this is only possible through:

1   1) Community leader who communicate with students internally within an online community of the domain or offline in a class.
       2)Technological infrastructure that enables members of the community to communicate on regular basis and most efficiently.

The work of a student produces two kinds of results: knowledge result and grades/rewards. Lecturer has to be in charge of stewardship and provide students with a usable knowledge and  therefore contribute to constant development so each student will be able to share the knowledge with others and expand their own capabilities. The key is highlighting importance of a question asked or giving a positive feedback (validation) that shows students right direction in their analytical thinking in a discussion.

This theory still doesn’t clearly address problem proposal questions as it describes only the important parts of a knowledge-sharing process. It demonstrates the process of participating rather than motivational factors that might encourage participants to interact with each other.

              Community of Inquiry  

Community of Inquiry is a theory that describes whole communication flow on a platform, and either potential for regular interactions of users or gaps preventing users to interact. The theory of Garrison & Anderson (2005)[4] explains potential inactivity of users in depth and contains all fundamental elements that meet users’ expectations in any type of an online community environment.

Garrison & Anderson in their theory Community of Inquiry demonstrate that there are three pillars which drive successful e-learning experience:

1) Social presence, 2) Teaching presence, and 3) Cognitive presence.[5] Each element plays a significant role for improving student satisfaction level in online learning.

Strong teaching presence fosters efficiency of the cognitive presence. There are three essential parts of the teaching presence:

·         Instructional design and organization (establishing curriculum, macro-level communication, designing methods)

·         Facilitating discourse (encouraging, acknowledging or reinforcing user contributions)

·         Direct instruction (presenting questions or content, focusing discussion on specific topic/issue, identifying misconceptions, and explanatory feedback).

Strong teaching presence also means that community leader and all members would initiate discussion with an initial activity that might be engaging for others to discuss further and establish peer-driven discussion. 

Garrison demonstrates that social presence is group of individuals who share common interests and have personal relationships so the interactions will be then easier to happen within an online community.

Social presence[6] consists of three categories:

·         Affective (being able to express emotions, feelings and beliefs by means of technology)

·         Cohesive (in other words group cohesion- individuals contributing to perform a task on an intellectual level with guidance from a teaching presence)

·         Open communication (building and sustaining commitment to the community- referring or quoting from others, asking questions, expressing agreement/disagreement).

Cognitive presence is a group of individuals who discuss and analyse certain events. There are four phases of cognitive presence:

·         Triggering event- problem, issue or task that members are intended to discuss or work on as designed by the instructor or community leader.

·         Exploration- members start talking and discussing a problem or topic (feedback, brainstorming, exchanging info and different ideas)

·         Integration- members discuss ideas or topics proposed by an individual or community leader and try to reach consensus and find relationship that reach a group agreement

·         Resolution- testing of the solution outside of an online space.

The theory Community of Inquiry also focuses on knowledge management, but compared to Community of Practice, it explains communication flow on the platform more in depth. The model highlights that teaching presence needs to provide social presence with means of cognitive presence to encourage community members to participate in an online collaborative learning.

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[1] See (Ivey Business Journal, 2004) ‘Knowledge management as a doughnut: Shaping your knowledge strategy through communities of practice’

[2] See Jayant R., Singh J., (2008)

[3] See (Ivey Business Journal, 2004) ‘Knowledge management as a doughnut: Shaping your knowledge strategy through communities of practice’

[4] See Daspit J., D'Souza D., ‘Academy oí Management Learning & Education’(2012)

[5] See (Journal of Consumer Research, 2009) ‘Pragmatic Learning Theory: An Inquiry-Action Framework for Distributed Consumer Learning in Online Communities’

[6] See (Jayanti R., Singht, 2009) J. ‘Pragmatic Learning Theory: An Inquiry-Action Framework for Distributed Consumer Learning in Online Communities’