Knowledge community

Last updated May 25, 2019

A knowledge community is community construct, stemming from the convergence of knowledge management as a field of study and social exchange theory. Formerly known as a discourse community and having evolved from forums and web forums, knowledge communities are now often referred to as a community of practice or virtual community of practice. As with any field of study, there are various points of view on the motivations, organizing principles and subsequent structure of knowledge communities.

A community is a small or large social unit that has something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity. Communities often share a sense of place that is situated in a given geographical area or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community. People tend to define those social ties as important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties (micro-level), "community" may also refer to large group affiliations, such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities.

Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organisation. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits. Also, the theory involves economic relationships, it occurs when each party have goods that the other parties value. Social exchange theory suggests that these calculations occur on romantic relationships, friendships, professional relationships and ephemeral relationships as simple as exchanging words with a customer at the cash register. Social exchange theory says that if the costs of the relationship are higher than the rewards, such as a lot of effort or money put into a relationship and not reciprocated, this could lead to issues.

Perspectives

As a web or virtual construct, knowledge communities can be said to have evolved from bulletin board systems, web forums and online discourse communities through the 80s and 90s. When framed with the scores of social networking sites coming online at the turn of the millennia, knowledge communities can be described as another form of social media. The biggest difference between social network sites and knowledge communities is, social network sites typically lack moderation or an outcome orientation. Social knowledge management technologies such as Knowledge Plaza are emerging and aim at reconciling these differences.

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors, sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

Social media are not only transforming private communication & interaction, they also will transform how people work. With social media knowledge work in organizations can be optimized extremely: like a better distribution/sharing and access to knowledge. This will be more and more important, as in today's business world, speed and complexity increase dramatically, while work environments change constantly. Social knowledge management is one of the application areas of social media in a business context next to others like sentiment analysis, social learning or social collaboration.

Stemming from social exchange theory, a well-established perspective is to view knowledge communities as a type of exchange. The motivations for participating in the exchange vary. The exchange remains open based on the perceived value (e.g., return on time investment) to knowledge community members.

Knowledge communities can also be viewed as a method by which to do organizational or process innovation. KCs are often founded to introduce change to a system, an organizational or societal by identifying, creating, representing and/or distributing data, information and/or knowledge in and via a community context on the pretext that more significant value will be created via a knowledge value chain.

Innovation in its modern meaning is a "new idea, creative thoughts, new imaginations in form of device or method". Innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. Such innovation takes place through the provision of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, or business models that are made available to markets, governments and society. An innovation is something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new, that "breaks into" the market or society. Innovation is related to, but not the same as, invention, as innovation is more apt to involve the practical implementation of an invention to make a meaningful impact in the market or society, and not all innovations require an invention. Innovation often manifests itself via the engineering process, when the problem being solved is of a technical or scientific nature. The opposite of innovation is exnovation.

From an organizational perspective, knowledge communities serve to maintain the strong ties and weak ties of the organization with many diverse publics; they help feed quality back into the organization (via more timely feedback and narrative analysis of discussions), drive organization credibility (via more rich exposure and building public trust by incorporating diverse opinion) and speed knowledge transfer and knowledge utilization, as well as do knowledge mobilization (e.g., by providing a conversation space to bridge gaps between research and practice).

Knowledge transfer refers to sharing or disseminating of knowledge and providing inputs to problem solving. In organizational theory, knowledge transfer is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another. Like knowledge management, knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users. It is considered to be more than just a communication problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum, an e-mail or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is more complex because:

The term knowledge mobilization (KMb) refers to moving available knowledge into active use. More than just "bridging the gap", KMb seeks to make connections between research/expertise and policy/practice in order to improve outcomes in various organizations or sectors. KMb involves knowledge sharing between research producers and research users, often with the help of third parties or intermediaries. The concept has grown out of increasing recognition that verified empirical knowledge should be the basis for many policies and practices. Social science research deals with the people side of quality of life issues and nation-building that are so crucial to the future of humanity. Human, technological and cultural developments are needed for economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, social harmony and cultural vitality. Yet using research in the social sciences presents particular challenges because the issues are often complex and long-term, and deeply affected by local contexts.

Common across perspectives is, knowledge communities can be employed to identify, create, represent, and/or distribute knowledge within and/or between populations.

Organizational behavior and structure

Knowledge communities nurture and facilitate ongoing relationships and a Knowledge Ecosystem where ideas are exchanged on an ongoing basis. Knowledge value is generated (derived, realized) during the transactional nature of the exchange. Existing knowledge can be synthesized (e.g. research fused with ideas from the field or other research) or new knowledge created via exchanges. KCs use a variety of two-way communication tools (e.g., via discussion board, article commenting, rating, poll, webinar ) to foster discussion and the exchange of ideas.

The organizational structure of knowledge communities varies significantly based on sponsorship and purpose. Contribution, moderation and content governance within knowledge communities is typically distributed amongst a core set of community members who become community moderator\facilitators. At a minimum, members of knowledge communities typically include a mix of subject matter experts, moderators, facilitators and the general public or a target population.

While information within a knowledge community is usually promoted to be open and public, persons are able to keep information private as well. Public information within knowledge communities is sometimes covered by Creative Commons Licenses and is given credit to the creators. Knowledge communities are seen as a bridge between traditional publishing models and an open access systems.

Pitfalls

Knowledge communities and communities or practice suffer from the same pitfalls of all communities. To some, the mission driven orientation can be a detractor to creativity. To others, the exchange aspects reek of the over commodification of culture and, by pooling experts or like-minded persons, KCs and CoPs can often be less diverse than traditional communities. Perhaps the societal response has been the emergence of social networks. Again, however, it is important to point out social networks and knowledge communities are related, but not the same.

Related Research Articles

Social software, also known as Web 2.0 applications or social apps, include communication and interactive tools often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mechanics of conversation and talk. Although we do not have a generally accepted definition, social software generally refers to software that makes collaborative behaviour, the organisation and moulding of communities, self-expression, social interaction and feedback possible for individuals. Another important element of the existing definition of "social software" is that it allows for the structured mediation of opinion between people, in a centralized or self-regulating manner. The most improved area for social software is that Web 2.0 applications can all promote cooperation between people and the creation of online communities more than ever before.

Internet culture, or cyberculture, is the culture that has emerged, or is emerging, from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment, and business. Internet culture is also the study of various social phenomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of the network communication, such as online communities, online multi-player gaming, wearable computing, social gaming, social media, mobile apps, augmented reality, and texting, and includes issues related to identity, privacy, and network formation.

Development communication refers to the use of communication to facilitate social development. Development communication engages stakeholders and policy makers, establishes conducive environments, assesses risks and opportunities and promotes information exchanges to create positive social change via sustainable development. Development communication techniques include information dissemination and education, behavior change, social marketing, social mobilization, media advocacy, communication for social change, and community participation.

Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a collection of processes that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve and share knowledge in their daily activities and the way in which these processes support work activities. It is a response to the idea that knowledge workers need to be responsible for their own growth and learning. It is a bottom-up approach to knowledge management (KM).

An online community of practice (OCoP), also known as a virtual community of practice (VCoP), is a community of practice (CoP) that is developed on, and is maintained using the Internet. To qualify as an OCoP, the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP) as described by Lave and Wenger must be met. To this end, an OCoP must include active members who are practitioners, or "experts," in the specific domain of interest. Members must participate in a process of collective learning within their domain. Additionally, social structures must be created within the community to assist in knowledge creation and sharing. Knowledge must be shared and meaning negotiated within an appropriate context. Community members must learn through both instruction-based learning and group discourse. Finally, multiple dimensions must facilitate the long-term management of support as well as enable immediate synchronous interactions.

A value network is a business analysis perspective that describes social and technical resources within and between businesses. The nodes in a value network represent people. The nodes are connected by interactions that represent tangible and intangible deliverables. These deliverables take the form of knowledge or other intangibles and/or financial value. Value networks exhibit interdependence. They account for the overall worth of products and services. Companies have both internal and external value networks.

A collaboratory, as defined by William Wulf in 1989, is a “center without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform their research without regard to physical location, interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, [and] accessing information in digital libraries”.

Social peer-to-peer processes are interactions with a peer-to-peer dynamic. These peers can be humans or computers. Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a term that originated from the popular concept of the P2P distributed computer application architecture which partitions tasks or workloads between peers. This application structure was popularized by file sharing systems like Napster, the first of its kind in the late 1990s.

Network of practice is a concept originated by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. This concept, related to the work on communities of practice by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, refers to the overall set of various types of informal, emergent social networks that facilitate information exchange between individuals with practice-related goals. In other words, networks of practice range from communities of practice where learning occurs to electronic networks of practice.

An online learning community is a public or private destination on the Internet that addresses the learning needs of its members by facilitating peer-to-peer learning. Through social networking and computer-mediated communication, or the use of datagogies while people work as a community to achieve a shared learning objective. Learning objectives may be proposed by the community owner or may arise out of discussions between participants that reflect personal interests. In an online learning community, people share knowledge via textual discussion, audio, video, or other Internet-supported media. Blogs blend personal journaling with social networking to create environments with opportunities for reflection.

The following outline is provided as an overview of topics relating to community.

A knowledge market is a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources. There are two views on knowledge and how knowledge markets can function. One view uses a legal construct of intellectual property to make knowledge a typical scarce resource, so the traditional commodity market mechanism can be applied directly to distribute it. An alternative model is based on treating knowledge as a public good and hence encouraging free sharing of knowledge. This is often referred to as attention economy. Currently there is no consensus among researchers on relative merits of these two approaches.

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a craft or a profession. The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Wenger then significantly expanded on the concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice.

A network-centric organization is a network governance pattern emerging in many progressive 21st century enterprises. This implies new ways of working, with consequences for the enterprise’s infrastructure, processes, people and culture.

A knowledge broker is an intermediary, that aims to develop relationships and networks with, among, and between producers and users of knowledge by providing linkages, knowledge sources, and in some cases knowledge itself, to organizations in its network.

A group is a feature in many social networking services which allows users to create, post, comment to and read from their own interest- and niche-specific forums, often within the realm of virtual communities. Groups, which may allow for open or closed access, invitation and/or joining by other users outside the group, are formed to provide mini-networks within the larger, more diverse social network service. Much like electronic mailing lists, they are also owned and maintained by owners, moderators, or managers, who can editing posts to discussion threads and regulate member behavior within the group. However, unlike traditional Internet forums and mailing lists, groups in social networking services allow owners and moderators alike to share account credentials between groups without having to log into every group.

Communities that support innovation have been referred to as communities of innovation (CoI), communities for innovation, innovation communities, open innovation communities, and communities of creation.

Interactive Learning is a pedagogical approach that incorporates social networking and urban computing into course design and delivery. Interactive Learning has evolved out of the hyper-growth in the use of digital technology and virtual communication, particularly by students. Beginning around 2000, students entering institutes of higher education have expected that interactive learning will be an integral part of their education. The use of interactive technology in learning for these students is as natural as using a pencil and paper were to past generations.

The ePORTUGUÊSe network is a platform developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to strengthen collaboration among Portuguese-speaking countries in the areas of health information and capacity building of Human Resources for Health, therefore enhancing health information systems in those countries.

References

Earl, M. (2001). Knowledge management strategies: Toward a taxonomy. Journal of Management Information Systems, 18(1), 215–233.