scholarly journals Social Capital in Virtual Learning Communities and Distributed Communities of Practice

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Daniel ◽  
Richard A. Schwier ◽  
Gordon McCalla
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Research Issues

Abstract. Social capital has recently emerged as an important interdisciplinary research area. It is frequently used as a framework for understanding various social issues in temporal communities, neighbourhoods and groups. In particular, researchers in the social sciences and the humanities have used social capital to understand trust, shared understanding, reciprocal relationships, social network structures, common norms and cooperation, and the roles these entities play in various aspects of temporal communities. Despite proliferation of research in this area, little work has been done to extend this effort to technology-driven learning communities (also known as virtual learning communities). This paper surveys key interdisciplinary research areas in social capital. It also explores how the notions of social capital and trust can be extended to virtual communities, including virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice. Research issues surrounding social capital and trust as they relate to technology-driven learning communities are identified.

Knowledge Access and Interaction Evolution in Virtual Learning Communities

2012 ◽  
pp. 1019-1038
Author(s):  
Maria Chiara Caschera ◽  
Alessia D’Andrea ◽  
Fernando Ferri ◽  
Patrizia Grifoni
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Virtual Learning Community ◽  
Support Interaction ◽  
Interesting Alternative

Interaction among members in Virtual Learning Communities influences the communities’ evolution. Starting from this consideration, this chapter provides a discussion on the more widely used software systems that support interaction between virtual communities’ members and virtual learning environment underlining the advantages and the disadvantages considering the several processes that characterize the VLCs. Moreover in education environments interactions are important in order to facilitate the learning process, and this chapter describes how the intelligent agent approaches can bean interesting alternative to a human facilitator. The analysis of intelligent agents describes how they allow both analysing interaction and improving the level of participation of members of a Virtual Learning Community.

scholarly journals Knowledge Management and Reuse in Virtual Learning Communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Houda Sekkal ◽  
Naila Amrous ◽  
Samir Bennani
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Online Learning Communities ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Management Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Source Of Information

One of the main sources of knowledge in the web is the social networks and especially online communitie because they contain human experiences which are considered as a rich source of information. This knowledge is in the most cases unstructured and is in the form of discussions organized generally by topics. The aim of this paper is to propose a process of knowledge extraction and Management in Online or Virtual Communities. With the widespread of communities in social media due to the services provided by those technologies, many of those communities are in the form of Learning communities created by expert to share knowledge about a topic of their interest. The knowledge shared by members in the online communities is unfortunately not structured and not capitalized. Many members try to access and learn from the shared knowledge in the community but cannot benefit from it due to its unstructured form. If that knowledge could be represented and stored in order to be reused, it would facilitate the knowledge acquisition by members. For this purpose, the present paper try to analyze the studies that treat the question of extracting and managing knowledge in Online Learning Communities based on several criteria exposed all along this paper. Then we propose a framework for managing knowledge in Virtual Learning communities inspired from the different previous frameworks presented in the analyzed studies, and try to propose and approach to overpass the different challenges present in the actual knowledge Management processes of Virtual Communities.

Virtual Communities

2009 ◽  
pp. 122-155
Author(s):  
Ben Kei Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
General Overview

The growth of virtual communities and their continuous impact on social, economic and technological structures of societies has attracted a great deal of interest among researchers, systems designers and policy makers to examine the formation, development, sustainability and utility of these communities. Over the last two decades, the growth in research into virtual communities, though fairly diverse, can be broadly categorized into two dominant perspectives—technological determinism and social constructivism. The basic tenet of the technology determinism research is that technology shapes cultural values, social structure, and knowledge. This Chapter provides a general overview of research on virtual communities. It describes two particular types of virtual communities relevant to the analysis of social capital described in the book; virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice. The goal of the Chapter is to provide an overall context in which social capital is reported in the book. The Chapter also describes other areas in which virtual communities are currently used. These include education, health care, business, socialization and mediating interaction among people in Diaspora.

Knowledge Access and Interaction Evolution in Virtual Learning Communities

2010 ◽  
pp. 113-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Chiara Caschera ◽  
Alessia D’Andrea ◽  
Fernando Ferri ◽  
Patrizia Grifoni
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Virtual Learning Community ◽  
Support Interaction ◽  
Interesting Alternative

Interaction among members in Virtual Learning Communities influences the communities’ evolution. Starting from this consideration, this chapter provides a discussion on the more widely used software systems that support interaction between virtual communities’ members and virtual learning environment underlining the advantages and the disadvantages considering the several processes that characterize the VLCs. Moreover in education environments interactions are important in order to facilitate the learning process, and this chapter describes how the intelligent agent approaches can bean interesting alternative to a human facilitator. The analysis of intelligent agents describes how they allow both analysing interaction and improving the level of participation of members of a Virtual Learning Community.

Re-Visiting Democratic Pedagogy in the Context of Virtual Learning Communities

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Hayriye Tugba Oztürk
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Democratic Education ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Open Education ◽  
Virtual Learning Community ◽  
Democratic Pedagogy

The purpose of this research is two-fold. First, it provides an overview of the debates over whether technology facilitates democratic education. Second, from this emergent body of discussions in the literature, it critically examines the potential of a virtual learning community to materialise democratic education, both through its underpinning of ideal values such as autonomy, participation and mutuality and through the technological spaces which learners inhabit. Virtual learning communities (VLCs) are increasingly appearing in the field of open education and in that sense, these emerging virtual communities demand a new understanding of democratic pedagogy. With regard to this, drawing on the theoretical debates, it aims to discuss how technology can take place in re-exploring the democratic pedagogy under the scope of VLCs. In doing this, a critical in-depth literature review was undertaken in an emergent area of virtual communities by aiming to contribute to the discussions over conceptualizing the democratic VLCs.

The Importance of Focal Awareness to Learning in Virtual Communities

2012 ◽  
pp. 177-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Gibbings ◽  
Lyn M. Brodie
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Student Ownership ◽  
Community Activities ◽  
Based Instruction ◽  
The Individual

Higher education today calls for transformative rather than transmissive education, and educators need to be particularly concerned with facilitating learners to fully focus on important elements, to make connections and properly process newly learned information. Educational approaches are beginning to place a greater emphasis on participation in community activities such as collaborative learning and team-work as opposed to individual inquiry. With the rise of the global community facilitated by the Internet and advances in communication technology, connected learners are forming virtual learning communities, which facilitate the individual and social aspect of learning through communication and team-based instruction models such as problem-based learning. To achieve this requires an education structure underpinned by pedagogical values that encourage student ownership of their learning and allows exploration of multiple perspectives by social interaction. One such educational structure may involve the use of virtual learning communities. The success of such a virtual learning community depends on developing key behaviours in students, which support them to focus on awareness of their own learning needs, attitudes and processes. This chapter argues therefore that students’ focal awareness is critical to learning in virtual communities.

scholarly journals Understanding the Sense of Community and Continuance Intention in Virtual Communities: The Role of Commitment and Type of Community

2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931985959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baltasar González-Anta ◽  
Virginia Orengo ◽  
Ana Zornoza ◽  
Vicente Peñarroja ◽  
Vicente Martínez-Tur
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moderated Mediation Model ◽  
Communities Of Interest ◽  
Intention To Continue ◽  
The Relationship

Virtual communities (VCs) have become essential in current organizations and society, and so their sustainability is a topic of interest for researchers and practitioners. We focus on the sense of virtual community (SoVC) and commitment as relevant antecedents in achieving the success and maintenance of different types of VCs (communities of interest, virtual learning communities, and VCs of practice). Specifically, this study examines a moderated mediation model in which the type of VC moderates the indirect effect of a SoVC on the intention to continue through the perceived commitment of the users of the VC. The sample consists of 299 members of VCs. The results showed that SoVC influenced the intention to continue via commitment to VCs. Additionally, the relationship between SoVC and commitment was higher for communities of interest and virtual learning communities than for VCs of practice. This article contributes to previous literature by identifying the importance of participants’ engagement and the contingent effect of the type of community. Implications of the study and directions for future research are discussed.

Conclusions, Book Limitations and Future Directions

2009 ◽  
pp. 242-251
Author(s):  
Ben Kei Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Bayesian Belief Network ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Modelling Techniques ◽  
Practical Tool ◽  
Critical Components ◽  
Share Information

Social capital in virtual communities offers a useful conceptual and practical tool to help us gain insights into the way people interact with each other, share information and knowledge among themselves and work together. This book has synthesized and brought together a massive volume of current and past work on social capital in geographical or place-based communities. The results of the analysis helped to extend the theory of social capital to virtual communities. It has also provided basis for e researchers, policymakers and systems designers to explore social issues that are likely to have an impact on information and knowledge sharing. The book provides useful information for people concerned with how social capital may be used to answer key questions about its fundamental components, how to study and model it within the contexts of virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice. The main thrust of this book is the ability to identify the critical components of social capital in virtual communities and the use of modelling techniques—Bayesian Belief Network to analysis of interactions of the components of social capital. The components identified in the book serve as important proxies for examination of how social capital will operate in virtual communities. It is hoped that this fresh conceptualization of social capital in virtual communities prepares scholars to engage in useful and productive discussions on how to hone the potentials of this theory. This Chapter summarises the key issues presented in the book and outlines important future directions for the discussion of social capital in virtual communities.

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