What <bleep> is a Community of Practice?

Definition

"The starting point for the idea of a community of practice is that people typically come together in groups to carry out activities in everyday life, in the workplace, and in education. Such groupings can be seen as distinct from the formal structures of these domains. These groups are characterized by three aspects. Firstly, members interact with each other in many ways, which Wenger refers to as mutual engagement. Secondly, they will have a common endeavor, which Wenger refers to as joint enterprise. Thirdly, they develop a shared repertoire of common resources of language, styles, and routines by means of which they express their identities as members of a group. Situated Learning then means engagement in a community of practice and participation in communities of practice becomes the fundamental process of learning." (Barton and Tusting, 1-2)

Barton, David and Karin Tusting, eds. Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power, and Social Context. Cambridge UP, 2005.

You may find "What is a Community of Practice?" useful. http://faculty.tamuc.edu/scarter/archive/CofP.htm

We use this to introduce our basic writing students to the term as they make extensive use of it in the English 100 assignment sequence (as described in "Refining Literacy as a Social Practice" in the Journal of Basic Writing [Carter 2006], "Living Inside the Bible (Belt)" in the July 2007 issue of College English [Carter, July], and, forthcoming from SUNY Press, The Way Literacy Lives: Rhetorical Dexterity and Basic Writing Instruction [March 2008]). 

Resources (abbreviated list)

Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction": http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

Jean Lave, Etienne Wanger, and Communities of Practice": http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm

in/for the Business Community

"What is a Community of Practice?" http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/definitions.shtml

Community Intelligence: Resource Base: http://www.community-intelligence.com/resources.htm

"Communities of Practice and Community-enabled Strategic Results from Self-Organisation": http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/

An IBM white paper on the subject: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/lesser.html

Harvard Business School's "Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge--Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice"

in/for the Government

"Communities of Practice for Local Government" http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/home.do

Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice Wiki   http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP

for Education

I'll try to add to this list, but the resources are MANY and varied.