| Abstract | This paper addresses the newly emerging paradigm of knowledge dissemination and collaboration in Online Communities. The authors present the results of a pilot study of thirty existing community portals, including information about the portal architecture, functionality, and design details. The paper discusses the functionality of different elements of virtual community spaces such as the discussion forum, digital repository, e-learning resources and collaborative tools that are utilized by various online communities, including engineering and scientific online communities. The authors devote a significant amount of attention to the investigation of design functionality, collaborative tools and practices that support member participation and knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing in virtual enterprises and communities of practice is facing major challenges due to a failure to align their incentives system with the objective of creating value through knowledge sharing. Special design considerations to encourage member participation and knowledge sharing in the online professional communities are discussed. |
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