Social recognition provision patterns in professional Q&A forums in Healthcare and Construction

摘要

For some decades, professional Q&A forums have been used as a mainstream way of sharing practices between novices and experts. Several forums have had time to develop their own communities and habits, which made them a suitable place to explore patterned epistemic practices. In this paper we look at the social recognition, help seeking and informal learning patterns in communities of practice; our aim is to use the corresponding outputs to scaffold technology supported informal learning. We analyzed professional discussion forums in two countries (UK and Germany) in two different sectors (Healthcare and Construction). We identified a set of interrelated patterns that are used for socially verifying and maturing rules and guidelines, solving problems, introducing new practices and triggering learning. Some particular social recognition and learning trends common in Healthcare and Construction sector Q&A forums are highlighted. We discuss epistemic practice pattern networks for developing scaffolds to enhance the quality of informal learning in workplace environments in an integrated way. We suggest and validate empirically a model of social recognition provision in Q&A forums. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.