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Social network sites are emerging as a popular communication tool for knowledge sharing and construction. LinkedIn, which concentrates on professional networking, is reported to generate great informational benefits to its users. The purpose of this paper is to explore product users’ knowledge construction in solving technical problems on LinkedIn, which was chosen as a case example.

Discussion threads with rich knowledge elements were selected from an interest group about solving technical problems with laptops. Adopting a qualitative content analysis method, selected threads were analysed with a prior analysis framework built in the context of traditional IT company sponsored peer user support forums.

The analysis revealed that the iterative and progressive knowledge construction process and associated trial-and-error strategy used on LinkedIn are similar to those found in peer support forums. However, LinkedIn members are more engaged in knowledge construction episodes. Meanwhile, the sub-category “proposing a new idea” accounts for a larger portion of discussions reflecting the high-level of expertise. One-to-one direct interaction is quite salient. Therefore, LinkedIn can support knowledge construction in a more efficient way due to the character of its social capital, including trust, sense of belonging, norms of cooperation, visible identity, knowledge articulation skills, one-to-one direct interaction and suitable strength of ties.

This research is novel in empirically revealing how LinkedIn attributes and its social capital attributes interact with each other and together facilitate an efficient knowledge construction process.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a content analysis framework and from that derive a process model of knowledge construction in the context of virtual product user communities, organization sponsored online forums where product users collaboratively construct knowledge to solve their technical problems.

The study is based on a deductive and qualitative content analysis of discussion threads about solving technical problems selected from a series of virtual product user communities. Data are complemented with thematic analysis of interviews with forum members.

The research develops a content analysis framework for knowledge construction. It is based on a combination of existing codes derived from frameworks developed for computer-supported collaborative learning and new categories identified from the data. Analysis using this framework allows the authors to propose a knowledge construction process model showing how these elements are organized around a typical “trial and error” knowledge construction strategy.

The research makes suggestions about organizations’ management of knowledge activities in virtual product user communities, including moderators’ roles in facilitation.

The paper outlines a new framework for analysing knowledge activities where there is a low level of critical thinking and a model of knowledge construction by trial and error. The new framework and model can be applied in other similar contexts.

This study examines whether online asynchronous discussion forums support student’s meaning-making about citizenship in a globalizing world. Citizenship is an increasingly contested identity for young people, yet they have few opportunities in traditional civic education to consider their own citizenship. Although online discussions are considered effective spaces for increasing dialogue and critical thinking between diverse students, there has been little research to understand how effective they are for helping students to construct new understandings of citizenship.

A content analysis approach was used to analyze and code 89 discussion board posts. The Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) coding scheme was used to describe and analyze the quality of knowledge construction that occurred across the posts focusing on different aspects of global citizenship.

The findings demonstrate that the discussion boards produced substantive talks about the meaning of citizenship that in some instances reached the level of new knowledge construction. The students considered different meanings for global citizenship and negotiated positions on key issues. However, the highest levels of knowledge construction were rarely reached.

A major implication is the need to organize and cue discussion boards to support knowledge construction in addition to fostering dialogue.

This study contributes to the role that technology can play in supporting students’ knowledge construction about global citizenship that go beyond the scripted meanings conveyed in civics classes.

The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented a fully online professional development course on open educational resources-based e-learning (OEReL), which adopted a scenario-based learning (SBL) design within the constructivist pedagogy. It was designed to facilitate knowledge construction in a collaborative manner with the support of open educational resource (OER), mainly through peer-facilitated discussion forum activities. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study on how peer-facilitated discussions affected the OEReL process, what factors supported and hindered peer-facilitated discussions, and what challenges were faced during the process.

The OEReL course consisted of five modules with 14 discussion forum activities. Content analysis of the threaded forum discussions was the key data collection and analysis strategy based on the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007). It was supplemented with participants’ reflections and focus group discussions.

The three elements of CoI – cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence played a major role in knowledge construction in the OEReL process. A complementary relationship between cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence was observed, where the three elements have interacted in supporting knowledge construction. Overall, the findings reaffirm the significant of role of instructors in cultivating the three presences within a peer-facilitated environment, by enabling learners to engage with the content in a meaningful manner through appropriate course design, structure and leadership.

Forum discussions created an opportunity for participants to engage in meaning making through social negotiation, where facilitation became a shared responsibility among instructors and learners. Peer-facilitation was the key strength that promoted critical, analytical and reflective thinking, as well as self-regulated learning. The SBL design, learning tasks with OER integration, and instructor guidance were the most supportive factors, while time constraints due to the participants’ workload was challenging.

Through carefully orchestrated, well-structured and pedagogically sound OEReL environments, peer-facilitated forum discussions can be designed creatively and implemented in a meaningful manner to enhance knowledge construction.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the dynamics of an emerging form of teaching and learning – social network knowledge construction – associated with the use of social networks, particularly 3D virtual world environments such as Second Life. As social network technologies not only frame the way individuals interact and learn, but actually impact on a learner's thinking process and development of future consciousness, new pedagogies are needed to effectively integrate these communication mechanisms into the learning environment.

The paper discusses the purpose and potential use of these networks in the teaching and learning process. Distinguishing features of social network knowledge construction as an emerging pedagogy are identified.

Strategies for incorporating a variety of identified social networks, both in and out of virtual worlds, for teaching and learning are noted.

The focus of this emerging pedagogy is framed within the social networks surrounding Second Life, in particular, although the pedagogical framework could be applied across any set of social networking or virtual world applications.

The paper provides critical information currently required by the early to mid‐adopters of social networks and virtual worlds for teaching and learning.

This paper identifies an emerging form of pedagogy that has yet to be fully discussed in the literature, and supports the present issue's emphasis on future‐focused learning.

This is a conceptual paper. I argue that knowledge-construction, or learning in a profession, has changed with the introduction of professional doctorates, though the divide between these new forms of doctoral study and the older and more established forms such as the PhD are now not as wide as they once were. In particular, three elements of the knowledge-construction process are implicated here. The first of these is a move towards learning environments which prioritise situated-theoretical applications of the theory-practice relationship at the expense of technical-empiricist, technical-rational, multi-methodological and multi-discursive variants. The second is movement towards different sites of learning, so that instead of the knowledge-construction process taking place exclusively in universities or institutes of higher education, the workplace is now central to the construction of learning environments. And the third is the development of new types of knowledge-construction, and these are now acting to reframe relationships between the professions and the state. This has resulted in forms of deprofessionalisation, with some professions in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world experiencing significant losses of autonomy and independence in relation to ownership of their specialized bodies of knowledge and skills, control of the means for credentialising these bodies of knowledge, and renegotiated professional mandates, leading to restrictions on their capacity to determine for themselves these specialized bodies of knowledge and those learning environments in which practitioners acquire them.

This study investigated the role of experienced practitioners in promoting pre-service teachers' knowledge construction and social interaction in an online professional learning community.

A repeated measures design with control and experimental groups was adopted. Two practitioners supported pre-service teachers in the experimental group to discuss issues around teaching practice. Social network analysis (SNA) and content analysis (CA) were used in the analytical approach.

CA revealed that the practitioners increased pre-service teachers' levels of knowledge construction and high-cognitive discourse. SNA showed that the practitioners enhanced pre-service teachers' professional ties. Though collaboration in high-level knowledge building occurred predominantly in peers in the same discipline, the presence of the practitioners facilitated the development of more cross-disciplinary ties in the experimental group.

The practitioners can be considered as a pedagogical tool to enhance pre-service teachers' engagement in the process of professional learning. This study suggests that in order to enhance the collaboration among pre-service teachers from different departments, the online activity should be designed to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration.

The study contributes new knowledge about the ways in which practitioners can enhance the collaboration among pre-service teachers in an online PLC. It also provides insight on how to combine CA and SNA, to examine professional learning.

This paper aims to investigate the following questions: What are the types of discussion prompts in a fully online graduate course? What are the key characteristics of students’ discussion initial posts and replies in a fully online graduate course? In what ways, if any, do discussion prompts influence the types of initial posts and replies in discussion threads?

This study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the dynamics of students’ knowledge construction through using asynchronous discussion boards. A total of 20 discussion prompts and 115 discussion threads from nine archival discussion boards in a fully online library science course were collected and analyzed.

The findings identified open-ended, explanatory and reflective prompts in discussion boards. Students engaged in simply stating, paraphrasing, elaborating, extending, reflecting, socializing and sharing emotions in discussion posts. These findings highlighted the interconnectedness of reflection and socio-emotional interactions in a community of inquiry and pointed out their important roles to support richer and deeper online discussions. The study further observed linkages between the types of discussion prompts and the types of discussion posts.

This study addressed an urgent need to understand the use of online discussion boards in an emergency remote teaching condition in a pandemic. The findings of this study offered educators insights into evidence-based design recommendations for prompts to support students’ knowledge construction and deep learning through using discussion boards.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis and review of the sociotechnical approach as a result of analysis of experiences with the introduction of ICT in higher education

The experiences of the author with the creation of special web sites in palaeography are analysed paying special attention to knowledge construction and development at three different levels: individual, community, and organisation (society). The results are compared with those from the concept of communities of practice.

There is a need for the introduction of a new element in the SECI cycle and the introduction of a new element in the scheme for a sociotechnical approach.

The findings need further experimentation in order to discover any validity for the knowledge management field in relation to the concept of communities of practice.

The use of the scheme for the sociotechnical approach could help in the planning and implementation of information systems in a variety of situations.

The paper introduces new elements to be considered for the application of the sociotechnical approach and for the construction of information systems in corporations and organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the construction of health knowledge in the Finnish national curriculum and recent Finnish health education textbooks, at primary and secondary levels of education. The authors examine the visual and textual content of the textbooks in an attempt to identify their pedagogical style and approach to health education.

The study is part of an international, European Union funded, FP6 STREP Project, Biohead‐Citizen. Conceptual health knowledge construction is analysed evaluating the emphasis placed on a biomedical model or on a health promotion ( HP) approach. Pedagogical style of the text and illustration is classified as either neutral, persuasive, participative or injunctive, out of which especially persuasive and participative reflect the constructionist approach.

The textbooks cover a wide range of health topics and meet the core contents of the national curriculum. The approach used was primarily that of HP and used a persuasive and participative approach. The pedagogical style of text, tasks and illustrations reflected current pedagogical thinking.

The study encourages future research to explore the effects of pedagogical construction on materials and learning in health education.

The paper usefully analyzes the pedagogical properties of recent Finnish health knowledge textbooks.