• provide a new way of engaging with members
• enable members to share, connect and support each other directly

Background

The aim of the survey was to research what professional institutes and associations are doing or plan to do in the area of learning communities. Learning communities appear to be a potentially valuable extension to any community of interest of community of practice such as a professional institute. However, we wanted to see what was happening on the ground and what progress is being made and what issues are arising.

There appears to be a growing recognition that the sheer pace of change means that people cannot know everything. Instead they have to be able to tap into knowledge resources quickly and efficiently, they have to be flexible and learn and relearn faster than ever before. There is also an increasing acknowledgement that much of the knowledge within organisations or communities is tacit. Thus it is difficult to identify and codify it and place in a central repository with the speed that is required given the pace of change.

The internet has for the first time created the potential to develop powerful learning communities that can support staff in organisations or consumers of products in many different ways. For example:

Communities of interest will logically only exist if there is a shared benefit in belonging and contributing. In the case of professional institutes there is an obvious common interest in sharing knowledge in their professional area. Research shows that it is the common interest of the community that keeps it together.

Thus if learning communities are to develop and thrive then we would expect them to become and active part of professional institutes and associations. The survey took the form of an online survey which was followed by more in-depth interviews. The initial findings of the survey are set out below.

The Findings

Current learning communities

Over half of the 20 professional institutes which participated in the survey had some form of online learning facility. However, most of these were a mixture of online guidance, some e-learning materials and reference to available training rather than a learning community where people shared knowledge and expertise.

The professional institutes do recognise the importance of developing communities of expertise but do this primarily through working groups which meet physically.

Obstacles to learning communities

The biggest obstacle that professional institutes identified to the development of full learning communities was the cost of development. Most felt that learning communities would be potentially very beneficial but the costs of development and lack of identified demand from members meant that resources were not being invested in this area.

There was also a concern that learning communities would not only be expensive to develop but also expensive to maintain and support.

Institutes were unsure how far members or their employers would be prepared to pay for additional services to cover the additional costs of a learning community.

Benefits of learning communities to professional institutes

The survey identified three key benefits that professional institutes could achieve through the development of a central learning community. These were:

• the extension of a new service to members
• engaging members in a new and innovative manner
• enabling a lot more sharing between members
  

Almost all professional institutes recognise the benefits of sharing between their members. In order to facilitate this they frequently organise meetings, often regional meetings, where the primary benefit is that members come together and share ideas and debate issues. They also recognise that the physical nature of such meetings means that often many people cannot attend or participate.

There was a recognition that online communities and forums could enable more members to connect and participate in events. There was also a feeling that even if members did not participate they could listen to or observe developments.

Most Institutes are actively looking to extend their services and felt that an online learning community could be a more innovative and potentially significant long term development. There were, however, some institutes who feel their role is primarily to facilitate learning rather than provide services directly. Thus they tend to direct members to approved learning providers.

A number of institutes saw learning communities as a potential commercial activity in the future where members, or more likely their employers, would pay for this service. The idea was to organise the community as a separate service where the focus is on the learning community as a work based performance support tool. The potential benefits to employers could be:

• online coaching for new staff
• immediate access to wide ranging expertise on current issues
• improved performance of current staff through desktop access to the community’s resources and expertise
• demonstrable commitment to professional staff development
  

Benefits of learning communities to learners

Over 80% of the professional institutes felt that the main benefits to professional learners themselves would be:

• the ability to find information quickly by asking the community
• the opportunity to connect with people who had relevant experience of say a similar problem or issue
  

In further discussions other potential benefits were identified such as the ability to capture knowledge in a way that it can be reused, searched and accessed by other members. Thus even if a member did not participate in the original discussion they could access the discussion or information for their own reference.

It was also felt that learning communities generate living knowledge not knowledge stored in a manual, i.e. knowledge and experience about works in the real world. This could be very useful at times of change such as new regulations when information and experience could be shared quickly and easily.

A number of institutes also felt that an online learning community could support newer members through coaching and support.

Most valuable community functionality

The most valuable functionality within a learning community was felt to be the ability of members to be able to ask questions directly of the whole community. Thus members would have access to a far larger pool of people to support them than they have at work or through their personal connections.

The findings were also consistent with other findings in that learning communities were felt to be more valuable if they contained smaller and more focused sub-groups. They were felt to be event more valuable if the learners themselves had the power to set up new discussion groups of their own to focus down on the issues that they really wanted to cover.

Barriers to participation in learning communities

The biggest single barrier to participation in learning communities which was identified by over 90% of respondents was the learners own lack of time. Learning communities thrive where there are active members contributing ideas and views. Successful learning communities have recognised what Gladwell in his famous book “the Tipping Point” called Mavens. These are people with extensive knowledge and experience who are very happy, indeed enthusiastic, about sharing such knowledge. Communities such as Microsoft recognise the role of such people and reward them through schemes such as “most valuable member” programmes and other benefits.

New learning communities will clearly need to make it easy for members to participate, to engage the Mavens and most fundamentally to prove the value of a learning community to the members and their employers.

Another way of ensuring members use the site is to ensure regular, interesting content. It was generally felt that regular interviews with respected community members on current topics and organised online question and answer sessions with such respected people would encourage members to use the site.

Audio

The majority of the respondents (60%) felt that audio would be a useful feature of a learning community, particularly audio interviews with respected members of the profession or community.

Summary

A virtual learning community appears a potentially valuable extension to the services offered by professional institutes and the development of such communities is being actively considered.

On balance most professional institutes felt learning communities could and would add significant value over time. It was felt that that over time such online learning communities would become commonplace, albeit they were not sure exactly what form these communities would take. Many pointed to the success of other online communities such as e-bay, and the increasing ability of people to be able to participate on web sites from Amazon book reviews to the rating of items to the ability to post comments.

The survey identified two key issues that need to be addressed when considering the development of a professional learning community:

- financial

• how to minimise the costs both of developing learning communities and of maintaining and running the communities
• how to develop the learning community as a commercial proposition by charging employers and members to use the service

- how to ensure active participation

• identifying and engaging the mavens, the valuable members that will contribute to the community
• making it easy for members to participate and contribute
• providing valuable functionality such as ‘ask the community’ and the ability for users to form their own specific interest groups