This article explores the implementation of cross-functional professional learning communities (PLCs) involving faculty, staff and administrators at three different institutional types -- research, urban regional, and rural regional universities -- with the goal of learning about and then implementing a culture change approach to support academic…

Purpose: Nowadays, networks are the basic core of social organization and interaction; consequently, networking has become an indispensable requirement in today's societies. In education, the development of different types of collaborative networks has been observed, leading, in recent years, to the creation of educational macro-networks that…

Online students are becoming an increasingly big part of the student population in higher education. Interaction and collaboration is beneficial for academic performance and well-being, but can be challenging to facilitate in the online context. Through individual in-depth interviews, we have investigated online students' experiences of academic…

This article introduces work originating from the area of Networked Learning that seeks to problematise and critically discuss notions such as 'collaboration', 'community', and 'participation'. It argues that there is a dark and shadowy side to these ideals, which we need to attend to in a reflexive manner. To this end, it introduces ideas of…

In this article, I respond to my father's 2005 article "From Here to Clare: Yearnings of a Scholar-Turned-Dad." My goal is to share whether and how I followed the guidance he set forth, and how those recommendations shaped my life and moral development as an undergraduate student and beyond. It is my hope that students find inspiration…

This paper presents the Integrated Methodological Framework (IMF) which uses social network analysis (SNA) to structurally identify communities in higher education online learning (HEOL). Decades of research speaks for the value of community-based learning albeit in traditional, blended, or online environments. The communities of practice (CoP)…

While prior research suggests that many educators turn to social media to grow and enhance professional learning networks (PLNs) that extend beyond their schools, little is known about how PLNs shift over time. In this exploratory study, we investigated the nature of continuity and change in the PLNs of 192 K-12 and university educators from 17…

Considering the expansive context of the international Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community, SoTL scholars may wish to reflect and identify what exists for building and nurturing fellowship, and how they may be enacted in practice to benefit others. In this reflective article, we draw on our experiences as International Society…

Professional learning networks (PLN) in Higher Education represent new social configurations for networked workplaces in which education, research and innovation can be combined. Here academic staff engages with others outside of their everyday organisational community. This study identifies and conceptualizes essential behaviours that…

Communities of transformation work to achieve deep, transformational change in higher education teaching practice. This case study of The POGIL Project follows the development of a community of transformation principally focused on the propagation of effective teaching in STEM. We describe the origin of the community, elucidate the emergent…

Academic communities of practice (ACoPs) are formed in collaboration with professionals from industry and the community with the aim of providing innovative solutions to real-world problems. There are no adequate frameworks and clear support structures for managing academic communities of practice (ACoP). The main aim of this paper is to develop…

Purpose: This paper is a thinking piece that examines, from the viewpoint of a Canadian pracademic, working through two definitions of pracademic, a collaborative relationship between academics and practitioners and a person engaged as a practitioner and researcher. Two aspects of a pracademics scholarship is discussed, wide awakeness and praxis.…

For a tribal college or university (TCU), cyberinfrastructure includes not only the campus computer labs, servers, routers, and software applications, but the classroom technology, research laboratories, library facilities, and personnel who operate and maintain these resources. The cyberinfrastructure at a TCU is a foundational tool that ties the…

College graduates, especially teachers, often feel alienated when starting their careers as they may lack robust support systems to help them address daily difficulties. Researchers study online learning communities as a model to address this missing support system; however, very little research exists on the benefits of embedding these learning…

Given the importance of research communities and research mentoring activities in developing research skills, universities around the world have paid special attention to improving these two dimensions. However, developing research communities and research mentoring culture in Vietnamese universities largely remain at a nascent stage because these…