In the McDonald article, the study propose that acceptance of lurking depends on the goals of the organizations or groups. For example, if the focus is on knowledge management then a lurker would be seen as not contributing to the group, while a learning organization would find lurking as acceptable learning approach. I agree with this claim and think that in any CoP, goals of community and expectations from the participants should be clearly stated in order to have a successful CoP. I believe that contributions from all the participants are very important in order to have an effective CoP. What if most of the participants are lurkers in a CoP? How would knowledge be constructed or learning occur?
The article by Lakhani was interesting to read and learn why people are motivated to provide free information and help services to online support/help systems. Some of the motivations mentioned in the article are: learning benefits from reading questions, gain valuable information for themselves by learning about others problems, enjoy programming, and enhance reputation by helping others. I wonder if any or all of these implications are true for online CoP or e-learning communities?
No comments:
Post a Comment