Choosing the Partners

'You can learn from people who aren't your most obvious peer group that very different institutions all exhibit good practice'

The success of the community will depend upon the members. There are member/partner characteristics that are pertinent to a CoP, and there are some additional ones relating to the CAMEL model itself:

Enthusiasm for the group topic - this is an important characteristic of a community of practice
Knowledge/experience of the subject
Willingness to share knowledge and practice
Commitment (includes travelling and staying overnight)
Hosting study visit including preparation and co-ordination of the activities (See the section 'Organising the Study Visits' for more detail)
Institutional support (including financial if there is no external funding)
Not in direct competition (geographical, specialist areas) as this may hinder the honesty of the communication

It is not always the peers that you would immediately think of that could be most beneficial to you. As the quote above from one of our partners showed.

If individuals are applying to become part of your community/project then you will need some criteria to assist the selection process. The following list gives examples of the type of questions you could ask. The list could also be used by individuals to evaluate themselves (e.g. can you answer 'yes' to all these questions?) before joining. You may include some questions that are subject/domain specific:

Do you want to share achievements that you and your partners are proud of and feel others can learn from?
Are your ideas/methods/approaches transferable to other situations?
Can you demonstrate practical, transferable results rather than a project outline or work in progress?
Can you show how the work ties into your institutional or local e-learning strategy (or other appropriate strategy or policy)?
Are you able to explain clearly the costs and benefits of what you are doing?
Could you convince sceptics that what you have achieved is worthwhile?
Are you committed to sharing practice and learning from others?

In our CAMEL model pilot we found that all our partners were highly committed to the project and this contributed to the trust within the group.

In the 'resources' section you can find examples of the:

original call for participants to join the project
example of a call to participate in an internal CAMEL project that one of the partner universities set up as a result of seeing the benefits of the original project

Using the CAMEL Model to Build a Community of Practice

Applying the Model

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