VCoP

The Virtual Community of Practice was said to not be able to occur. Murillo and Spicer have searched Internet based learning groups to see if they fit the CoP model and found that they did. They looked for Wenger's

Essential traits

Mutual engagement,- collective problem solving, Debating domain-related issues
Shared repertoire, shared criteria and practices
Joint enterprise
Community- Shared sense of professional community, members knowledge of each other
Learning/Identity acquisition.- Improving professional skill, acquiring new knowledge, Identifying with the profession

and also

Exemplary Traits

high quality institutional documents,

mid-size group,

non-conflictive,

focused on professional issues

focused on discussion,

high volume of interactions,

core-periphery structure

They summarize that finding extra-organisational CoPs affirms Wenger's model of the CoP as a naturally occurring social structure. They also imply that the virtual space works like any other space to set up a CoP.

It seems to me that a new humanism has been created by the Internet and web technology. People are now able to communicate across traditional boundaries. Knowledge is a freely available commodity. Participatory democracy is more possible. The basic unit in this new social/political design is the CoP.

MURILLO, E., & SPICER, D. (2007). Searching the Usenet network for Virtual Communities of Practice. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1-6. Retrieved 6/12/2007 Ebscohost,Charles Sturt University.