OCoP+Research

=Connected Project Research Overview =

The overall goals of the U.S. Department of Education Connected Online Communities of Practice Project are to:
 * develop and steward scalable sustainable online communities;
 * facilitate the connection of existing online communities in purposeful ways; and
 * conduct research that will lead to progressive refinement of knowledge related to the power and potential of online communities in education.

Research conducted in the Connected Online Communities of Practice project is designed to develop a deeper understanding of the ways in which online communities better enable education professionals to share practices, access experts, communicate, collaborate, and solve problems that require systemic solutions in order to improve the opportunity to learn. This document outlines the overarching research framework for the project. The National OCoP for educators practicing in a technology rich environments will provide research opportunities in the following four strands:

I. Design-Based Research (DBR)
The design-based research (DBR) has been defined as “a systematic but flexible methodology aimed to improve educational practices through iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation, based on collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings, and leading to contextually-sensitive design principles and theories” (Wang & Hannafin, 2005, p. 6). The DBR method results in greater understanding of a “learning ecology” (Cobb, Confrey, di Sessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003, p. 9). Specifically, DBR enables community managers, stakeholders, and researchers to:
 * Develop activities, content, events, and tools that create value for members
 * Develop interventions that increase accessibility, member participation, and cross-community connections
 * Shape the desirability, practicality, and effectiveness of the activities, content, resources, and tools used in OCoPs
 * Design interventions that provide members with opportunities to strengthen their ties and interactions

The DBR method employs an iterative process as seen in the Figure 1 below. Through this iterative process, DBR connects interventions to outcomes in ways that lead to better alignment between theory, treatments, and measurement (Hoadley, 2004).

 Figure 1. DBR Method Iterative Process Illustration



<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 26px;">II. Value Creation
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The purpose of the value creation strand is to identify promising models for cultivating community engagement that blend individual and collective learning within a shared domain of practice. The following questions guide this aspect of the research:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In what ways is the community’s value to members aligning with (or failing to align with) the community’s overall purpose and goals?
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In what ways can the activities, content, events, opportunities, and tools of the community be iteratively altered to better:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Engage and provide value to members
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Increase “sense of community” among members.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Foster and support networking among members.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Empower and encourage members to be proactive builders of the community and its services.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat (2011) argue that the value of the learning enabled by community involvement and networking needs to be examined in the context of both personal and community narratives. Using Wenger, Trayner and de Laat’s framework for promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks, we will employ the use of value-creation stories to integrate data and provide a reliable picture of how online communities are creating value for their members.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">III. Social Roles
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The purpose of this strand is to better understand the networking patterns and roles of OCoP leaders and members to begin to answer the following questions:
 * 1) <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What are the participation and networking patterns of community members?
 * 2) <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What are the social roles of community members?
 * 3) <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Who are the leaders and emerging leaders of online communities and what common characteristics do they share?

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Social network analysis methodology will be one of the approaches used help to portray the interaction patterns and relations among OCoP members and how information flows within the community. Social network analysis can illustrate “important social phenomena such as group formation, group cohesion, social roles, personal influence, and overall community health” (Hansen, Shneiderman & Smith, 2011, p. 48).

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">IV. Evolution
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> The purpose of the OCoP evolution research strand is to e xamine the critical decisions communities face over time; the ways and extent to which decisions are informed by available data, resources, and people; and the implications that result from the decisions made. The research questions are as follows:


 * 1) <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What critical decisions do new OCoPs face in the first two years of the community’s implementation? To what extent do these decisions involve structures, roles, activities, content, and/or events?
 * 2) <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How are critical decisions made and by whom? What information sources are used?
 * 3) <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What are the implications of critical decisions made in the first two years of a community’s implementation?

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">References/Resources
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cobb, P., Confrey, J., diSessa, A., Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2003). Design experiments in education research. //Educational Researcher, 32//(1), 9-13. <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hansen, D. L., Shneiderman, B., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Analyzing social media networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hoadley, C. M. (2004). Methodological alignment in design-based research. //Educational Psychologist, 39//(4), 203-212. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Wang, F., & Hannafin, M. J. (2005). Design-based research and technology-enhanced learning environments. //Educational Technology Research and Development, 53//(4), 5-23. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W.M. (2002). // Cultivating communities of practice. A guide to managing knowledge. // Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wenger, E., Tayner, B., and de Laat, M. (2011). . <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Amsterdam: Ruud de Moor Centrum.