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Partici patory Forums and the Informal Transfer of Knowledge US Army Officers and Complex Records within a Professional Community of Practice Heather Soyka University of Pittsburgh SAA 2013. Site of study: Company Command. Questions.
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Participatory Forums and the Informal Transfer of KnowledgeUS Army Officers and Complex Records within a Professional Community of Practice Heather Soyka University of Pittsburgh SAA 2013
Questions • What can a continuum approach reveal about the nature of an information system created and used by a professional community of practice? • What is the role of records in actively creating and sustaining this community? • What can this case study reveal about the records continuum model?
Frameworks • Records continuum model (Upward, 2005): a framework for considering systems rather than individual actors that recognizes that human activity is mediated by communication and organizational contexts
Frameworks • Communities of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1999): groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis Three defining common characteristics: • Domain • Community • Practice
Social theory of learning • Social theory of learning (Wenger, 1999) places social participation as an important process in learning and knowing • Meaning • Practice • Community • Identity
Sources of Data • Forum and forum posts • Published versions of forum conversations • Interviews with forum creators and administrators at the United States Military Academy • Interviews with forum members
Pilot Test • Selected forum posts published in ARMY magazine on a monthly basis since 2005 • Set of narratives that is complex, mediated, individual, and corporate • View of war from the edges of the organization
Evidential Vector Records Continuum Collective Memory DIMENSION 1 Document Accountable Acts DIMENSION 2 Capture Records Organisational/Individual Memory Evidence Representational Trace ACTS Transactional Vector Unit(s) Authority Vector Institution Acts Functions Purpose Activities Organisation Actors [Archival] Document Records DIMENSION 3 Organise Recordkeeping Regime DIMENSION 4 Ensure Societal Memory Archive Archives Recordkeeping Vector
Emerging Themes • Micro/macro level impact that can be mapped using the records continuum as a framework • Impact of records on the formation, sustainability, and growth of community • Use of knowledge management as a community records practice that contributes to formation of identity
Thank you! Heather Soyka has76@pitt.edu