1. Creating Virtual Communities of
Practice for GIS Education
Dr. Michael N. DeMers

2. The Busy GIS Professional

4. Ability of Online to Deliver

5. Need for Realism and Experiential
Learning

6. Need to Understand Workplace
Workflows

7. Need to Understand Workplace
Time demands

8. Need to Understand Workplace
Culture

9. Need to Understand Workplace
Expectations

10. Enter Communities of Practice

11. Dimensions of CoP
Enterprise
Shared
Engagement
Repertoire

12. Wenger 1998

13. Can They Go Digital?

14. Review of Research on Virtual CoP

15. Guidelines for e-CoP
• Voluntary Involvement
• Problem-focused
• Distributed Leadership
• Accessibility
• Shared Identity
• Sustainability
Kendall, et al 2010

16. Benefits of e-CoP for Learning
• Enhances learning through collaboration
(Johnson 2001)
• Common ground through sharing (wenger et al 2002)
• Continuous, cyclical & fluid learning (Gannon-Leary
and Fontainha 2007)
• Learning “to be in” practice (Brown & Duguid 2002)
• Identity formation (especially for the
newcomer)

17. Barriers to e-CoP
• Disciplinary specialized expertise (Bos et al 2007)
• Academic culture of independence (Hollingshead
1998, Ozdemir, 2007)
• Weak motivation due to existing collegiality (Smith
2005)
• Shifting membership (Wenger 2005)
• Institutional trust (Stokos et al 2003, 2005)
• Selective use of ICT (Schwen and Hara 2003)
• Whether the CoP is task-based or practice based
(Fowler and Mayes 1999)
• Absence of non-verbal cues (Gibson and Manuel 2003)

18. What is Adaptable to GIS&T?

19. Who Are the Community Members?

20. How Do You Locate Them?

21. How Do You Link Learners and
Practitioners?

25. What Is The Measure of Success?

26. Promoting Sustainability

27. Mutual Benefit

28. Rebuilds The Base of the GIS
Educational Pyramid