Scenario-Planning for Learning in Communities

The chapter investigates an actionable model of virtual participation for learning communities, in the context of holistic student development in college education. The framework of analysis is based on scenario-planning, accommodating the dynamics of strategic design, decision making, and prototyping of various organizational scenarios of learning in communities. This conceptualization is extensible in cyberspace in today’s World Wide Web, especially promising for today’s universities, under the mission of ensuring quality student learning. The premise in this exploration is situated in the design of living and learning programs in residential colleges that must integrate the genuine concerns of holistic development for both teachers and students. What is often argued in this mesh of organizational design is how exactly to connect members of the communities, albeit the very behavior of hoarding personal presence (or knowledge) is what makes people feel secured and successful. The virtual participation model responds to this need by emphasizing the presence of an appreciative form of community sharing that could be facilitated through some innovative electronic channels designed into the daily living and learning experiences. However, the task of identifying what to watch for in building an online community of learning (CoL) is not at all straightforward. The authors’ investigation provides a basis to think of the generative potential of appreciative processes for interaction among different CoLs. The emergent challenge is to de-marginalize the concept of appreciative sharing among CoL members, expositing on the effective meaning behind the creation of such an environment through which purposeful individual or organizational learning could be enabled with the elaboration of suitable information technologies.

The Generative Potential of Appreciative Inquiry as an Essential Social Dimension of the Semantic Web

The mission of this chapter is to present a framework of ideas concerning the expected form of knowledge sharing over the emerging Semantic Web. Of specific interest is the perspective of appreciative inquiry, which should accommodate the creation of some appreciative knowledge environments (AKE) based on the peculiar organizational concerns that would encourage or better institutionalize knowledge work among people of interest in an organization. The AKE idea is extensible to the building of virtual communities of practice (CoP) whose meta-data requirements have been so much facilitated in today’s Web technologies including the ideas of data ownership, software as services, and the socialization and co-creation of content, and it is increasingly visible that the AKE model of knowledge sharing is compatible for the need of virtual collaboration in today’s knowledge-centric organizations. The author’s investigation should provide a basis to think about the social dimension of today’s Semantic Web, in view of the generative potential of various appreciative processes of knowledge sharing among communities of practice distributed throughout an organization.

The Generative Potential of Appreciative Inquiry as an Essential Social Dimension of the Semantic Web

The mission of this chapter is to present a framework of ideas concerning the expected form of knowledge sharing over the emerging Semantic Web. Of specific interest is the perspective of appreciative inquiry, which should accommodate the creation of some appreciative knowledge environments (AKE) based on the peculiar organizational concerns that would encourage or better institutionalize knowledge work among people of interest in an organization. The AKE idea is extensible to the building of virtual communities of practice (CoP) whose meta-data requirements have been so much facilitated in today’s Web technologies including the ideas of data ownership, software as services, and the socialization and co-creation of content, and it is increasingly visible that the AKE model of knowledge sharing is compatible for the need of virtual collaboration in today’s knowledge-centric organizations. The author’s investigation should provide a basis to think about the social dimension of today’s Semantic Web, in view of the generative potential of various appreciative processes of knowledge sharing among communities of practice distributed throughout an organization.

The Generative Potential of Appreciative Inquiry for CoP

The chapter investigates an actionable framework of knowledge sharing, from the perspective of appreciative inquiry. This framework should accommodate the creation of appreciative processes that would encourage or better institutionalize knowledge sharing among people of interest in an organization. The idea is extensible to the building of communities in cyberspace so much facilitated in today’s Internet and World Wide Web, and it is increasingly visible that such a model of knowledge sharing is quite promising for today’s virtual enterprises. The premise in our exploration is that organizations were beginning to understand the power of unleashing knowledge among individuals. What they struggled with was how exactly to unleash that power, albeit that the very behavior of hoarding knowledge is what makes employees successful. The presence of an explicitly appreciative format rendered by the enterprise should allow many to say what is on their mind without being questioned, critiqued or put on the defense. And it could be done using the many electronic services of technology-enabled appreciative systems made available. However, the task of identifying what to watch in building a knowledge-sharing community online is not at all straightforward. For example, community can be examined by focusing on how users or participants work with and learn from the experience of community participation, or on the nature of collective imagination and feelings of identity as a tool for understanding belonging and attachment to particular virtual communities. Our investigation should provide a basis to think about the generative potential of some appreciative processes on a virtual community’s knowledge activities. The design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing an organization’s appreciative systems is an essential issue, but the role of the individuals as participants in a virtual community is as important. The emergent challenge is to de-marginalize the concept of appreciative sharing of knowledge among members of the organization, expositing on the effective meaning behind the organization’s creation of the appreciative framework for knowledge work through which purposeful individual or organizational activities could be supported with the elaboration of suitable information technologies.

The Generative Potential of Appreciative Inquiry as an Essential Social Dimension of the Semantic Web

The mission of this chapter is to present a framework of ideas concerning the expected form of knowledge sharing over the emerging Semantic Web. Of specific interest is the perspective of appreciative inquiry, which should accommodate the creation of some appreciative knowledge environments (AKE) based on the peculiar organizational concerns that would encourage or better institutionalize knowledge work among people of interest in an organization. The AKE idea is extensible to the building of virtual communities of practice (CoP) whose meta-data requirements have been so much facilitated in today’s Web technologies including the ideas of data ownership, software as services, and the socialization and co-creation of content, and it is increasingly visible that the AKE model of knowledge sharing is compatible for the need of virtual collaboration in today’s knowledge-centric organizations. The author’s investigation should provide a basis to think about the social dimension of today’s Semantic Web, in view of the generative potential of various appreciative processes of knowledge sharing among communities of practice distributed throughout an organization.