Using innovative social networking tools to foster communities of practice

In-depth
Using innovative social networking tools to foster
communities of practice
Authors The National Digital Learning Resources Service (NDLR), funded by the HEA, is an open
educational resource service, providing an open online repository and community por-
Yvonne Diggins
tal, shared between the seven Universities and the fourteen Institutes of Technology
yvonne.diggins@ul.ie
in Ireland. The NDLR uses innovative technologies and social networking tools to foster
Ann Marcus-Quinn
Ann.Marcus.Quinn@ul.ie over thirty active communities of practice.
Aisling Dundon The NDLR, with the aim of promoting and supporting higher education staff in the
aisling.dundon@ul.ie
collaboration, development and sharing of learning resources and associate teach-
University of Limerick ing practices, has been a success on a national level for higher education in Ireland.
Miriam Allen It currently hosts over 20,000 open digital resources, developed by higher education
miriam.allen@dit.ie academics and also contains a number for resources from Jorum, an open online re-
Catherine Bruen pository in the United Kingdom. This paper provides an in-depth look at a selection of
cbruen@tcd.ie these resources and their use by participants.
Trinity College

Tags
1. About the NDLR Service
NDLR, Communities of
Practice, OER, Higher
Education

 
Figure 1: NDLR Logo (NDLR 2011)

The The NDLR (Figure 1) is an open educational resource service, providing an open online
repository and community portal (Figure 2), shared between the seven Universities and the
fourteen Institutes of Technology in Ireland (NDLR 2011 a). The NDLR has been a success on a
national level for higher education in Ireland, as it currently hosts over 20,000 open digital re-
sources, developed by higher education academics and also contains a number for resources
from Jorum, an open online repository in the United Kingdom (HEA 2009; Hunt 2011; IrlGov
2011; Jorum 2011). NDLR’s mission is “to promote and support higher education sector staff
in the collaboration, development and sharing of learning resources and associate teaching
practices” (NDLR 2011 a). Approximately 75% of the NDLR service budget directly funds local
and national learning innovation projects.

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that the project proposes
to collaborate with three
or more higher educa-
tion institutions. These
collaborative projects are
modelled on European
projects, with a ‘lead’ in-
stitution coordinating the
project in partnership with
others.

3. Sustainable, Man-
ageable, Active, Relevant
and Reflective, Targeted
Communities of Practice
(SMART CoPs). SMART
CoPs are cross-institutional
subject discipline related
communities associated
with locally funded institu-
  tional learning innovation
Figure 2: NDLR Portal (NDLR 2011 a) projects (LIPS) and cross-
institutional collaborative projects funded (LInCs) (McAvinia
and Maguire 2011). SMART CoPs are communities in dif-
The NDLR supports higher education academics and institutions ferent disciplines and subject areas, corresponding with the
in the following three ways (Figure 3):

1. Local Innovation Projects (LIPS). Each partner institution
receives an annual allocation of
funding to support local aware-
ness-raising and development of
the NDLR. In 2010, over 140 lo-
cal Learning Innovations Projects
were developed by higher edu-
cation academics across all sub-
ject disciplines.

2. Learning Innovation Commu-
nity Support Projects (LInCS). A
national call for NDLR funding is
offered on an annual basis and
encourages institutions to col-
laborate cross-institutionally
to develop open educational
resources. From 2009, to date,
there have been more than 30
successful LInC projects. A cri-  
Figure 3: NDLR Supports (NDLR 2011)
terion of the national funding is

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International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) The NDLR community portal, which was developed using Ma-
subject taxonomy, composed of staff interested in the use hara open source software, uses innovative social networking
and application of digital resources and technology in the tools to enable academics to communicate and collaborate with
teaching of their subjects. Within these community areas each other. Currently, over thirty NDLR communities of practice
higher education academics use social networking tools to are active. For the purposes of this research paper the ‘Health’
collaborate and to share their teaching and learning experi- SMARTCoP has been identified as a case study. Through the use
ences, practices and resources of the online NDLR portal the ‘Health’ community of practice
has developed over one thousand open reusable learning ob-
2. Social Networking and the NDLR jects. In 2010 the ‘Health’ SMARTCoP successfully secured NDLR
LInCS funding to develop a suite of reusable learning objects for
Communities of Practice: A showcase of
two national funded projects; ‘Clinical Assessment Training’ and
the ‘Health’ SMARTCoP
‘The Principles of Infection Prevention and Control; the devel-
A key impact of the NDLR service is to support greater collabo- opment of reusable learning objects’. Followed in 2011, by suc-
ration in developing and sharing digital teaching resources and cessfully securing funding for three national funded projects;
associated teaching experiences across all subject disciplines ‘The development of e-learning tools for dentistry’, ‘Mobile re-
and communities of academics and to promote good practice usable learning resources for clinical assessment and technical
use and re-use of existing resources (Jennings 2010). By being skills training’ and ‘eLearn Psychological Medicine’.
empowered by the support of NDLR online communities, aca-
demics and staff from different disciplines can share effort and The ‘Health’ SMARTCoP actively uses the following social net-
expertise as they raise the bar collectively for how they support working features to collaborate and communicate with commu-
their students’ learning, embed research in their teaching and nity members. The ‘Health’ SMARTCoP set up an online ‘Group
potentially embracing partnerships with research and industry, Web/Homepage’, which outlines what the group is about, links
both in Ireland and Internationally (NDLR 2011 a). to their reusable learning objects outputs, along with research
interests. The SMARTCoP
also has an online ‘Mem-
ber Listing’ area, which
enables members to view
who is a member of the
group with the facility to
contact members with
items of interest for ex-
ample possible funding
opportunities or collabo-
rations.

The ‘Forums’ area is ac-
tively used by members,
an example of popular fo-
rums would be ‘News and
Events’; ‘Funding Opportu-
nities’; ‘Learning Resourc-
es Swap Shop’; ‘Collabo-
ration Room’. Members
can subscribe to forums
and receive updates when
  new posts are submitted.
Figure 4: NDLR Health SMARTCoP Homepage (NDLR 2011 b) Members can also set up

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Figure 5: NDLR Health SMARTCoP Forum (NDLR 2011 b)

and edit multiple ‘WebPages’ for their community area and can and share best practice teaching and learning initiatives, which
add content and hyperlinks to resources and articles of inter- have resulted in the development of over 20,000 open and re-
est for the community or embed videos from the ‘NDLR Vimeo usable learning objects. The use of social networking features
Channel’, which currently hosts over two hundred and eighty within the NDLR communities supports best practice in the de-
videos developed by higher education academics in Ireland. velopment of quality education resources and facilitates nation-
Members can also ‘upload and share files’ with other members al collaboration, irrespective of the institutions that academics
who can view the files or learning resources and comment on are representing. The community areas are self-moderated by
them. The ‘Health’ SMARTCoP also has a ‘Group Tweets’ facility, community members, allowing academics to collaborate and
where members can post timely tweets about items of interest, work on their own initiatives in their own free time with other
for example funding opportunities or events, which go to the community members. Due to the support and success to the
NDLR twitter page are also visible within the community ‘Group social networking aspects of the NDLR community areas, the
Tweets’ area. The NDLR also uses a Facebook and Twitter pages NDLR will continue to develop and enhance existing social net-
as mediums of communication, along with an active Blog and working features and technologies based on the needs of the
RSS feed. NDLR community.

3. Conclusion
The NDLR actively uses social networking tools as mediums
of communication and collaboration, which have successfully
helped to foster and maintain over thirty active communities
of practice enabling members to communicate with each other,
collaborate on the development of reusable learning objects

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References
Higher Education Authority (HEA). (2009) Open and Flexible
Learning HEA Position Paper. [online], available: http://www.hea.
ie/odl [accessed 3 January 2011].

Hunt, C. (2011). National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030.
http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/he_national_
strategy_2030_report.pdf.

IrlGov. (2011). Towards Recovery: Programme for a National
Government 2011 – 2016. http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/
labour_towards_recovery_report.pdf: Oireachteas Eireann.

Jennings, D. (2010). Content, Context And Consequence The Art
Of Collaboration: The Reality Of Communal Practice. International
Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, ICERI 2010.

Jorum (2011). [online], available: http://www.jorum.ac.uk/
[accessed 6 September 2011].

McAvinia, C. and Maguire, T. (2011) Evaluating the
National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR): new models of
Communities of Practice. Link: http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/
aishe-j/article/view/39. AISHE-J: The All Ireland Journal of
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education,Vol 3, No 1.

National Digital Learning Resources Service (NDLR). (2011
a), [online], available: http://www.ndlr.ie [accessed 10 April 2011].

National Digital Learning Resources Service (NDLR). (2011
b), Health SMART CoP [online], available: http://www.ndlr.ie/
institution/health-smart-cop [6 September 2011].

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Using innovative social networking tools to foster communities of practice

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