Supporting community of practice:On-line and off-line interaction?

The role of ICT in supporting community of practice has drawn important attention, especially in improving knowledge sharing between agricultural research and advisors. The debates have mounted on whether ICTs alone support knowledge sharing or not. Researchers argue that ICT based tools alone are not sufficient and we need both online and offline/non-virtual interactions. The use of ICT should be considered as iterative process in which virtual and non-virtual interaction mutually reinforce each other. It is argued that ICT-based interaction sparks real life and face-to-face interaction, which should be followed-up by ICT-enabled communication. The study has cited preliminary findings of our ongoing SSHRC research project that investigates role of social media in enabling agricultural and rural development innovation in Ontario. For full article please read on, Valentina, Gaire and Laurens (2014)