Royal Roads University uses Tomoye Community of Practice Software to Accelerate Learning
June 4, 2003
Ottawa – CANADA, Royal Roads University, a Canadian university that specializes in e-learning, has chosen Tomoye Simplify to support a new initiative that promotes the value of Communities of Practice as a tool to promote learning. A Community of Practice is a distributed group of people who share a common interest, mandate or sense of purpose. Communities of Practice are delivering results in organizations worldwide by improving performance, increasing innovation and accelerating learning.
Royal Roads, which offers programs at the graduate level for learners who continue with their careers while studying, has an educational model that is similar to the modern work world. Although learners spend some short intense stretches of time learning with each other in a face-to-face environment, they typically work in different organizations, live in different parts of North America, and operate in different time zones. They need to know how to collaborate at a distance.
In a pilot project launched last month, a class of graduate learners at the university is collaborating in an online Community of Practice that will give them better access to people, conversations and knowledge that are relevant to their domain of study. And by making these kinds of connections online using Tomoye Simplify, learning can continue after the class and even after the program has completed.
Susan Chandler, director of e-learning management at Royal Roads says, "Communities of Practice enable people in groups to generate ideas and combat the feeling of isolation that is common among distance learners. They complement a traditional e-learning infrastructure by providing a forum for building valuable relationships and sharing tacit knowledge through collaboration."
The role of Communities of Practice in accelerating the learning of an organization's new employees is equally compelling. "A common challenge faced by many of our customers is the need to rapidly increase the productivity of new employees", says Eric Sauvé, co-founder and acting CEO of Tomoye Corporation. "New employees that are members of a Community of Practice benefit from shorter learning curves by being able to refer to the prior experience of other recognized experts among their colleagues." According to a study from the American Productivity and Quality Centre, reducing the "time-to-competency" of new hires is one of the top six objectives for knowledge retention strategies in organizations today.
In addition to their pilot project, Royal Roads is exploring ways of supporting internal communities using Tomoye Simplify. The university's Knowledge Management program also offers a graduate course focusing on Communities of Practice theory and techniques.