A Socio-Technical view of KM in communities.

H.Hasan, L. Warne, I. Ali, K. Crawford

The STAR Group

(Socio-Technical Activity Research)

Background to the STARs

The STAR Group - a collaboration of Australian researchers from the

Department of Information Systems at the University of WollongongEnterprise Social Learning Architectures, Joint Systems Branch, DSTO Department of DefenceNovae Group, Australian Technology Park, Sydney

Plus colleagues fromMonashUNSWANU

STAR Activities

ARC Discovery project 2002-2004 – “Systems to support Knowledge Creation in Learning Organisations”Annual KM Workshops at Wollongong 2001-2003Book “Australian Studies in Knowledge Management” (2003)Conference tutorials workshops and panelsConference papers and journal articles

Social Learning Research (Warne & Ali DSTO)

Social Learning Research (Warne & Ali DSTO)

Motivators Enablers Challengers InhibitorsOrganisational

Outcomes

Effectors

LearningToolset

Overarching Values

Linger 2002 Monash

ImplicitExplicit

Public

Private

ImplicitExplicit

Public

Private

ImplicitExplicit

Public

Private

Personal

Community

Organisational

Tool-mediated collective activity -Activity Theory

The work/learning activity system is comprised of the following components:

individual workers/learners, their colleagues and co-workers/learnersthe purpose to which members direct their activity the conceptual models, tools and equipment they use, and the rules, culture and context that govern how they work, and learn through their work

Activity Systems

An Activity-Based KMS (Hasan W’gong)

Communities and KM

Our view Knowledge Management

Management – focus on organisationsKnowledge – focus on individualsInnovation and knowledge creation –comes from

teams, groups, communities of practice / interest / learning

Real communities are all three

Online Communities

Sustainable communities are collections of people that engage in KM activities that encompass a common interest, and where there is ongoing learning through practice. New information and communications technologies (ICT) are enabling communities that span conventional boundaries of learning and doing, as well as space and time.

Online communities can be properly regarded as complex socio-technical systems.

A multifaceted, socio-technical approach

face-to-faceor video conference ….to build trust, team skillsto develop a sense of communityto built mutual respect

and onlineto overcome the constraints of time and placedepends on available technology and technical skills of community members

Communities of Practice (Wenger)

Communities of practice are everywhere. We all belong to a number of them–at work, at school, at home, in our hobbies. Some have a name, some don't. We are core members of some and we belong to others more peripherally. Whatever form our participation takes, most of us are familiar with the experience of belonging to a community of practice.A Community implies a shared practice and shared knowledge

Three dimensions of Community

What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members How it functions - mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.

Communities Attributes

The key elements of communities are practice (doing) and identity (belonging) development (growing). Communities are fundamentally self-organizing systemsCommunities structure learning in two ways: through the knowledge they develop at their core and through interactions at their boundaries. Communities grow through the learning that people do together

Lifelong learning through work

Learning by doing, experiential learning

Learning and Practice

In education there is an emerging imperative for creating learning environments that take advantage of the dynamic developmental nature of communities to make the experience of learners relevant to the ever-changing, technology-enabled world in which they will live and be employed. Similarly, there is indeed a business imperative for intellectual capital creation which is a socially constructed dynamic process of situated collective knowing that is capable of being leveraged into economic and social value.

Communities as Socio-Technical phenomenatechnology, no matter how advanced, is far from providing solutions on its own; it is essential to take a holistic socio-technical approach to this issue. however new ICT can be the catalyst to form and sustain heterogeneous (in time and space) communities where it is imperative to share knowledge and skills communities will only develop around things that matter to people. As a result, their practices reflect the members' own understanding of what is important. In this research, innovative ICT and social systems have been used to support new forms of activity that meet several real needs in the community at once and represent an emerging solution of benefit to each of the active stakeholders.

Some Research

The developmental research method

development research is disciplined investigation conducted in the context of the development of a product or program for the purpose of improving either the thing being developed or developer. it is both contextual and evolutionary, where a prototype model is constructed, used with the target group, which is observed and questioned before the prototype revised.in our research the model incorporates technology together with social and learning processes and discipline is imposed on our investigation by the analysis of each case as an activity system, in the tradition of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.

Case Study Model

The multifaceted model begins with a facilitated face-to-face workshop where participants learn to be a community and plan how to continue online.This is followed by a period online where learners, experts and instructors are linked by a special-purpose, Internet-based communication and group-support package. During this period the community undertake a team-based, problem-solving project where experiential learning takes place through the generation of skills, ideas and solutions.

The model used in educational settings

The multifaceted model of experiential, team-based learning proved successful in creating awareness of the new science of Photonics among city high school student. The next case moved this activity into a rural setting although the object of the activity was the same as that of the previous city communities and the community was based in a single town.

The third case expanded the activity to incorporate a different purpose, a university course, with a more

geographically distributed community membership.

Case Studies

Case one: Photonics at the ATP, SydneyCase two: Innovative Science Awareness in a Regional School (Photonics at Bega High School)Case three: Information Systems Awareness in Regional Schools (Eden, Bega, Moruya, Bateman’s Bay)Each project was a response to a real need and involved High School students, teachers, community seniors.Projects concluded with celebrations where young people show their creative work and explain their new learning and interest to members of the community including politicians, local government officials and the media.

A new community

Regional coordinators of CTCs (Communities Technology Centres) in Southern NSW. The CTCs are a government-funded initiative to provide IT services and training in small towns. Members of this community were highly motivated to cooperate with one another by their feeling of isolation and a recognition of how they could help one another by maintaining contact online. The online community was planned and its creation facilitated at a regional workshop They have already created some projects of their own and have thereby increased the viability of their Centres by working together.

The Community – face-to-face

The Community – online

Concepts important to success

The purpose of community, including what can it achieve.The extent of diversity in the community and how different members are encouraged and their contribution valued.The mix of work and learning and how learning occurs in experiential, team-based, project-oriented, activity.How trust is developed, how teambuilding occurs and the contribution of different aspects mixed mode interaction, in particular face-to-face, video-conferencing and online.How different characteristics and capabilities of the people and technology affect the viability of the community, identifying the functions of technology and skills of people to be enhanced.

Some observations

The cases are part of ongoing research into distributed communities, as phases of an activity system going through expansive learning cycles. The cases are working examples of applied design that enables researchers, industry, business and the education sector to work together in new ways that effectively mobilise new knowledge.Active participants engage in the practices of social communities that have collaborative, and possibly virtual, workspaces.The supporting technological prototype has evolved throughout this process.

Discussion

 In the electronic age, online communities can be enabled by a flexible, multifaceted model where new information and communication technologies are the catalyst. An integrated socio-technical approach is essential. Communities are activity system in an expansive cycle of practice and innovative learning. This research aims to demonstrate that such communities are viable, with a wide range of benefits, economically and socially.

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