ERIC Number: EJ1092801
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Jan
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1302-6488
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Available Date: N/A
From Active Lurkers to Community Leader: Who They Are and What They Do
Alakurt, Turgay
Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, v17 n1 p3-15 Jan 2016
In this study, an email-based community supporting a community of practice (CoP) of mathematic teachers was investigated. Public messages members send were examined in order to determine what activities that were conducted by the members and what their level of participation is. Data was gathered via a "Media Records Evaluation Form". A content analysis of these messages revealed that the most frequent activity was views/chat, followed by appreciation and knowledge sharing. Findings also indicate that the least activities were apology, administrative and congratulations. In a CoP, membership is a personal matter and members represent different aspects of participation. In this sense, members' level of participation were determined by using clustering analysis. The results show that there are five different types of participation defined as community leader, core members, active members, peripheral members and active lurkers. However, research findings also point at a sixth group who never participate in knowledge sharing and exchange.
Descriptors: Communities of Practice, Electronic Mail, Computer Mediated Communication, Content Analysis, Mathematics Teachers, Teacher Participation, Group Dynamics, Coding
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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