Communities of Practice

This book links knowledge management literature and information systems research to explore the process of knowledge preservation within a community of practice. It contributes to existing literature in different ways. First, it provides a conceptualization of the “community knowledge preservation” process. In contrast to previous knowledge management research, knowledge preservation is thus viewed as a process in its own right rather than an integral part of knowledge creation and sharing.

During its brief existence Wikipedia has proved astonishingly successful with 2.8 million articles in English alone available freely to all with access to the internet.