Building online communities: From Social to Professional networking
Tim Cappelli, Alisdair Smithies
University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Background: This workshop will explore the use of social networking technologies in HE and how they can be enhanced and modified to provide an environment to support an effective online community. This builds on work carried out by the University of Manchester to create an online community of teacher-practitioners. The bespoke Web2.0 based system created provides a space for tutors to network, but also to use those networks to carry out meaningful tasks. Participants will be invited to create and use profiles in an ‘offline’ environment in order to demonstrate the value and issues of doing so, before carrying out the collaborative review and editing of an online paper. This will allow them to experience the system and how it supports the principles of community development. Participants will be invited to discuss these principle and how Web2.0 social networking applications can effective support professional networks.Ideas to be explored: Using a mix of participatory activities and demonstrations, the workshop will explore the value of social networking applications in order to support collaborative working and the exchange of ideas. Participants will take part in activities designed to highlight the benefits of networking, followed by hands-on experience of a new tool created to facilitate community building and professional collaboration. Participants will be invited to discuss how the technologies be used within their own context.Intended outcomes: Participants will be actively involved in the exploration of issues related to social networking and the benefits of collaborative working. From this they will gain an understanding of the problems inherent in using social networking applications in HE and an insight into how reconfiguration of these applications, or provision of additional features can move a community from a social to a professional network.no references included