The Sustainability of Virtual Communities of Learning and practice

摘要

The Virtual Communities of Learning and Practice are informal groups, created from the union of people interested in sharing a practice. Many of these groups are developed and kept for long periods. Others, however, perish in the initial phase, before the community acquired its mature and explore their potential for collaboration between members. This article aims to analyze how the process of formation of users identities - developed to measure the learning that occurs in the community - contributes to support of Virtual Communities of Learning and Practice. For this is discussed in depth the case of Virtual Communities of Learning and Practice that is created and managed by Fundap (Foundation for Development Administration), using the perspective of Actor-Network Theory, which assumes that the research is composed from the story told by the actors. It is concluded that the Virtual Communities of Learning and Practice sustain itself through the relationships that the actors (users) develop during the formation of their identities and learning, and that different patterns of process and technology change according to the dominant interests in the various moments of the life of communities.