From Community to Community of Practice: Exploring the Connection of Online Learners to Informal Learning in the Workplace

The study that informs this article investigated how online learners' participation in and perception of their sense of learning community contributed to or affected their relationship to their workplace environment and their workplace colleagues. The findings support contentions that, in the workplace, the work itself constitutes the most important locus of learning. Explicit transfer of knowledge comprised the most valued exchanges among colleagues. Although learners generally reported engaging and benefiting from participation in a learning community with their online peers, there was little evidence that they contributed to a robust community of practice in their workplaces.