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