Abstract

How can community or organization anticipate, address and satisfy its ever-evolving learning and communication needs in a cost-effective manner? The argument is presented that learning and communication efficiencies can be achieved by employing a framework that fosters the active questioning and re-use of knowledge within communities and organizations. The author names this framework the Electronic Learning Community. In short, an Electronic Learning Community (ELC) is defined as a collaborative, on-line environment that allows individuals in an organization or community to learn, evolve, and interact as a holistic entity by dynamically leveraging extant and evolving knowledge and media assets ubiquitously in day to day activity. Using existing case studies as justification, the Electronic Learning Community is meant to be a unifying framework that ties issues of knowledge management to the implementation of tools and technologies for communication and learning. Additionally, the exploration of the ELC framework is meant to identify research agendas and evaluation questions.