TAO/Setting Up and Maintaining a Community of Practice

Aims of the Module
Create a TAO Handbook chapter on communities of practice: definitions, development stages, best practices. Provide guidance and opportunities for the exchange of experiences among members of the TAO Community of Practice who are in charge of ensuring the documentation and exchange of knowledge and experiences as well as the co-ordination of actions in a distributed group of peers.

Target group(s)
People in charge of ensuring the documentation and exchange of knowledge and experiences and the co-ordination of actions in a distributed group of peers.

Step 1
Create a check list of best practices regarding the setting up, the development and maintenance of communities of practice.

Step 2
Use the check list as a basis for interviews with people who are in charge of setting up or maintaining a community of practice in the context of the project TAO.

Goals:
 * Describe the status quo of the communities under analysis
 * Collect questions, problem descriptions and challenges from the interviewees' perspective

Complement the analysis by an examination of the community platform and interaction channels by the researcher.

Share the status quo analysis with the TAO project team. Use the questions and problem description for a problem-based access to the TAO Handbook and Community of Practice.

Step 3
Based on the questions: give advice and inputs to help the development of 1 or 2 communities of practice.