Building Sustainable Academic Communities of Practice on Moodle

Abstract

How do you create an innovative academic community of practice between more than a thousand students emanating from across the country and the globe? This was the question put to the UNE Bachelor of Arts Course Committee in 2010. The committee saw the need for effective community building that focused on the processes within the degree structure. The project officer, Adele Nye, was given a general framework to develop a Moodle space that would be interactive, engaging and primarily academic. This was not to be a student support space. UNE already had an award winning student support system. The portal was to create an academic community of practice amongst students; especially off-campus students. It would promote a specific range of learning outcomes including interdisciplinary thinking, developing the notion of the undergraduate researcher and fostering challenging and diverse academic conversations amongst the large cohort. The teaching and learning committee saw an opportunity to roll out the model across all courses in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Brian Landrigan was asked to assist in the development of the Online Language Community Commons (OLCC). One of the objectives of the portal was to make it dynamic using available technology. This approach has led to the incorporation of external widgets to facilitate student interaction, with the site and each other. This paper will outline the story of these organic portals and the thinking behind them. To date the university has 21 portals and all continue to promote invigorated engagement for both on-campus and off-campus students.