Emergence v design – a case study of an emergent community of practice in a blended learning community in postgraduate education Tim Savage, Trinity College, Dublin. https://www.cs.tcd.ie/Tim.Savage/scholar.htm

Once again, very relevant to me. I’m particularly interested in the idea of a blended community which brings together the online and the F2F, strengthening both.

Tim used an ethnographic approach and grounded theory to study a supportive online community which runs alongside a course and has done for five years. He looked at the differences between the design space and the community which emerges. He also looked at the processes of emergence – the impact of the online F2F blend.

The emergent community is neither face to face nor virtual. It is  community with aspects of both. There was recognition of people’s online persona prior to F2F contact. The blended approach seemed to bring together a community more quickly than either an online or a F2F community would manage. People felt there was a lack of cliques. They had a sense of pride in the community. In-class groupings were more fluid than would have been expected if they had been based only on F2F contact. Cliques teded to exist only when people had met on previous courses. There was a strong commitment to the community a well as to the personal social network.