Note that the reader might best be served to first read the
topic Group Dynamics to understand the basic nature
of most groups and their typical stages of development. (It’s
not clear at this time if online groups have similar nature and
stages.)
Simply put, Communities of Practice are voluntary groups where
members share a common priority (a problem, topic, etc.) and enhance
their learning by interacting on an ongoing basis. Groups usually
are informal and not part of an overall organization.
Sections of This Topic Include
Basics and Overviews
Starting CoPs
Some Applications
General Resources
Also, consider
Related Library Topics
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Communities of Practice
In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which
have posts related to Communities of Practice. Scan down the blog’s page to
see various posts. Also, see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the
sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in
the blog.
Library’s
Leadership Blog
Library’s
Supervision Blog
Library’s
Team Performance Blog
Basics and Overviews
Communities of Practice
— a Brief Introduction
Communities
of Practice — Definition and Elements
Communities
of Practice (Wikipedia)
Communities of Practice
– An Overview
Communities
of Practice
Starting CoPs
A Startup Kit
Starting a Community of Practice (fostering relationships)
Community of Practice: Start-Up Kit
Establishing
a Community of Practice to Enhance TTA
Some Applications
A
Social Aspect to Virtual Worlds
General Resources
Fred Nickols’ list
of resources
Facilitation Library
CoP Resources
Tania Jarosewich on Evaluating Communities of
Practice
For the Category of Facilitation and Teams:
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may
want to review some related topics, available from the link below.
Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been
selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.