Tacit knowing made visible: The use and value of an online archive

Abstract

This dissertation outlines a design-based research study that takes place within two subsequent iterations of an online Masters’ course. This study examines the use and value of a learning archive, as perceived by students through their interactions with learning artefacts used during their course. Their course is held within an innovative and experimental social-networked learning environment. This study is based on key elements of organizational knowledge creation theory, in particular the process of knowledge creation and the concept of ba being the underlying context within which this knowledge is developed. This study documents the perceived impact that visible and persistent knowledge artefacts have on the process of learning. This study also shows that as artefacts are accessed and integrated into the overall learning process student engagement and efficacy are perceived to change in a positive way, and these changes impact both the learning environment and the learning process. This study produces two key outcomes. The first outcome is that the use of a socially networked online learning environment as a virtual classroom can offer a richness and an openness through its capacity to create, annotate, rate, and comment upon persistent artefacts. This use, coupled with permeable and flexible boundaries in the learning environment, offers richness to the learning experience. Learners within a social-networked space, as is used for this study, have complete control over their privacy settings and can make their contributions as open or as closed as desired. This type of environment encourages learning beyond the confines of the classroom and provides support for learner engagement and efficacy. The second key finding is that students in this study support the inclusion of a dynamic course archive containing artefacts from learners in prior iterations of the course. Given the structural limitations of many online learning environments, this study demonstrates that such an archive is likely best placed with a social-networked learning space and with appropriate search, tagging, and navigation tools. The study demonstrates that students will and have benefited from the archive’s use in support of their learning and will contribute to it in support of the learning of others.