Case Story: Business Learning Community Events

Summary	For Emerge June 2008 Workshop
Group / workshop	None	Status
Project details...

Situation

What was the setting in which this case study occurred?

A project working with small businesses, involving employees undertaking blended learning activities.Each business had a designated learning champion. An online community had been set up for them.

Task

What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?

The champions weren’t engaging well with the project, and the online community was effectively inactive. The aim was to encourage the community to develop, and hope that interaction between champions would allow them to help each other and develop their role.

Actions

What was done to fulfil the task?

A number of activities were organised for the champions, around working meals, including motivational speakers, and an opportunity to network.

Results

What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?

The events were very successful, although only some learning champions attended. Those who did generally became much better engaged with the project. However, the online community only improved a little. This was partly because those who came to the events generally had few problems – and wanted to answer questions, rather than ask them on the network. Those who didn’t come, probably could have benefited most from the network – but weren’t engaged enough to participate.

Lessons Learned

What did you learn from the experience?

The events obviously helped the community generally more than was reflected in the online network. Physical events (and also obviously online activity) are important for communities. However, how each type of activity benefits a community, and how they interact with each other, may be different in different contexts.

People take part in different community activities because they perceive that they will benefit from them. Giving community members one benefit (the social event), could influence them to consider other benefits. However, different benefits and incentives may have to be used for different types of participant. Some research may be useful to find out why people get involved in different community activities.

Are business learning communities different from academic ones (because of competition etc.)?

Licensing

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.