glossary

Glossary

AR

Action Research is a methodology which tries to combine inquiry with positive intervention towards an intended outcome.

COP

Communities of practice are groups of people who share the same interest and practice or role. They communicate regularly to share learning.

Distributed COP

A distributed COP is one in which the members are geographically dispersed and use mainly internet tools to communicate.

DAR

Distributed action research is AR with distributed COPs, and is used to improve and assess the functioning of dCOPS through better facilitation, technological changes or other interventions.

Barn Raising

A metaphor based on the need for a group of people to get together to build somebody's new barn because you can't do it by yourself. Now applied to getting new Wikis off the ground.

Wiki

A website that anybody can edit, which may also function as a communication tool and develop a community around it.