A Community of Practice Using Computer -Mediated Communication for Legitimate Peripheral Participation

"Communities of Practice rely upon the enculturation of newcomers into the community for maintenance and stability over time. Lave and Wenger's (1991) concept of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) plays an integral role in the reproduction of Communities of Practice. As an approach to situated learning, LPP includes not only traditional apprenticeship methods of learning but also ""indirect"" CMC learning that takes place on the Forum. An important finding of the study is that only a low level of shared knowledge is needed in order for LPP to occur. This means that the Forum is able to accommodate the shifting ""locations"" of brewers with varying degrees of experience on their trajectories toward ""full participation"". Moreover, I suggest that CMC LPP in the form of the Brewers' Forum actually functions as apprenticeship did in pre-Industrial brewing, leading to the conclusion that CMC LPP in this case is apprenticeship."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Library and Information Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Isenhour, John Lawrence

Contributors dc:contributor

• Geoffrey Bowker

• Sociology, General

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9971103

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81568