Building Community (and Why CoPs Keep Pulling Me In)
Lately, I’ve been deep in reading, listening, and sense-making around communities of practice (CoPs) in open education—especially what they can look like in Manitoba’s post-secondary context. I’m working alongside the Campus Manitoba team on this exploration, and I’ll leave any announcements or logistics to them. This post is about what I’m learning, the questions I’m carrying, and why I think CoPs matter for the people doing the work on the ground.
“Open by Design”, photograph by Amanda Coolidge, CC BY 4.0.
Communities of practice are the informal rooms where people trade know-how, test ideas, and tell the truth about what’s hard. Professional structures set the guardrails—roles, standards, accountability. When those two are in conversation, practice improves—and it does so with more care.
McMillan & Chavis remind us that a real community is about belonging, mutual care, and the belief that our needs are met by showing up for one another. In a CoP, that isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s the engine. Belonging is what keeps people coming back after the first-meeting glow fades.
“A feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.”
What I’m exploring…
1) CoP essentials, revisited.
Wenger and colleagues describe three anchors: domain (shared purpose), community (relationships and rhythms), and practice (the repertoire—stories, tools, moves—we build together). I’m noticing how often initiatives skip straight to “content” without tending the other two. My working hypothesis: if we get the purpose and the relationships right, the artifacts become both better and easier to produce.
2) Alignment that actually helps.
Communities thrive when organizational goals intersect with member passion. I’m exploring how to keep that balance in open education: supporting institutional priorities (affordability, quality, equity) while making space for educator-led curiosity and experimentation. Both matter.
3) Inclusion by design.
“Everyone welcome” isn’t the same as “everyone can participate.” I’m looking at facilitation choices that lower barriers: rotating voices, multiple modes (written, spoken, visual), accessible materials, and predictable touchpoints. Equity shows up in the small decisions.
4) A cycle that sustains.
I’m borrowing five lenses from CoP playbooks—Envisioning, Designing, Facilitating, Evaluating, Sustaining—to keep the work humane. The question I’m holding: what does “enough structure to be helpful, not so much that it becomes homework” look like here?
The questions I’m carrying into this work…
Belonging: What practices help people feel safe enough to share the messy middle—half-formed ideas, failed attempts, and the real constraints of their context?
Knowledge mobilization: How do we make sure discussions travel from the room into classrooms, libraries, policies, and student experiences—without asking people to take on unpaid second jobs?
OER adoption: Where are the friction points in Manitoba right now (awareness, time, discovery, policy, tech, recognition), and what small, shared tools could reduce them?
Policy to practice: When policies exist, what helps them live? When they don’t, what minimal scaffolds support momentum (guidelines, exemplars, micro-grants, recognition)?
Measurement: What light-touch ways can we check if the community is helping (signals like new collaborations, resource reuse, reduced duplication, student impact stories) without drowning in data?
Care: What does it mean to build a community that leaves people more energized than when they arrived?
Why this matters for open education right now…
Open education has always been both practical and values-driven. It’s about affordability and access; it’s also about pedagogy, agency, and connection. A well-tended CoP sits at that intersection. It lets us share the “how” (templates, workflows, language for administration/boards) and keep sight of the “why” (student wellbeing, equity, community). And crucially, it gives us a place to learn across roles—faculty, librarians, learning designers, administrators, students—because none of us moves this work alone.
What I’m reading and drawing from…
This exploration is shaped by a mix of research and practice notes:
Emily Webber’s framing on how professions and communities of practice complement one another.
Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder on domain–community–practice (and the reminder that learning can be both the point and the by-product).
Teeter et al. on CoPs as engines for faculty development across disciplinary boundaries.
Brandon & Charlton on what it takes to build inclusive CoPs that people actually stay in.
The Communities of Practice in Higher Education playbooks (Every Learner Everywhere and partners) for pragmatic, equity-centred design moves.
Practical guidance on designing for online participation and lowering barriers.
What’s next…
I’m excited about where this can go—and I’m intentionally not sharing details on “how it will work” here. When the Campus Manitoba team is ready, they’ll share information about participation, themes, and logistics. Until then, I’ll keep reading, listening, and testing small, useful ways to make open education easier to do well, together.
