Building Social Capital Through CoP Engagement
Though Lave and Wenger (1991) introduced the concept of CoP in the early 1990s, actual practices of CoP can be found long time ago under different names. The CoPs that most of us are familiar with are professional organizations and associations. In the field of adult education, for example, we know, here in the U.S., there are the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), International Society of Self-Directed Learning (ISSDL), Adult Education Research Conference (AERC), American Association For Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE), etc. In the history of distance education development, we’ve also found many CoPs engaged in advocating distance education development. For example, The National Home Study Council (NHSC) founded in 1926, renamed to The Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) in 1994, and then to The Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) in 2015, has played a critical role in the history of distance education (Kang, 2009).
Becoming a member of and being actively engaged in this type of CoP gives individual digital leaders the opportunities to learn and share knowledges, resources, and best practices. Example CoPs that fit this category include: The Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) (FaceBook Page Link), Quality Matters (QM Homepage Link), Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), to just name a few. There are also other types of CoPs that target specific populations. EDUCAUSE’s Integrative CIO CoP (CoP page) is such an example that has attracted IT leaders from higher education institutions across the U.S.. This CoP provides both opportunities and platforms for higher education IT leaders to discuss and share their own career developments, digital transformation initiatives, best practices, and successful stories.
This type of CoPs also plays the role of facilitating and elevating the growth of the field by providing a platform where organizations develop alliances, presenting strong and positive images about the field to both stakeholders and the public, and helping to guide the field’s future development. EDUCAUSE’s series of Horizon Reports, for example, are not just status reports of what’s been done. They also help shape the future of higher education by envisioning what types of technologies could potentially take the lead in educational technology innovations in the next several years, and what social, technological, economic, environmental, and political factors that need to be considered when leading digital transformations.
Below is a podcast featuring Keith McIntosh, Vice President and CIO for the University of Richmond. In this podcast, Keith talks about his digital leader journey and digital leadership philosophy and how he has benefited from the EDUCAUSE CoP.
https://embed.acast.com/61fab0ec8ff2cf0016e7216a/621e94ebd496c50012e689d5
