Review by: Roozen, Fieke (2006-06-11)

De Laat's doctoral research began with an investigation into the use of communities of practice in the Netherlands Police Knowledge Net (PKN), a nationwide intranet for police stations and related police institutes. PKN regards online communities as a means of promoting informal learning in the workplace, making existing police knowledge and procedures accessible online, and developing new police knowledge and procedures jointly. De Laat continued his research at the University of Sheffield. At the end of his thesis De Laat sets out the implications his findings could have for the police.

Chapter 1 deals with the social aspects of learning and focuses on various forms of joint learning in organisations. De Laat makes a distinction between learning in social interactions and collective learning. Collective learning he classifies into learning in networks, learning in teams, and learning in communities. Chapter 2 looks at ways in which police communities avail themselves of opportunities to learn in networks. However, this research environment turned out to be too limited, particularly because of delays in the intranet's roll-out and poor internal promotion of PKN, the result being a lack of adequate facilities and participants.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 examine two case studies dealing with the University of Sheffield's online e-learning study programme. The first of them describes the learning and tutor processes involved and provides a foundation for a method of studying these processes more closely. The second applies the same method once again in two other communities that are taking the same course (chapters 6 and 7). De Laat's research methods comprise a mix of content analysis, social network analysis and contextual analysis based on event recall interviews, separated into different periods of time.

Chapter 8 contains a synthesis study that looks at the processes and procedures involved in joint networked learning. The results of De Laat's case studies frequently concur with the literature he quotes. Finally, chapter 9 sets out these results and lists the implications for the PKN. De Laat's thesis ends with a description of a community-driven approach to networked learning, with a consideration of both individual and collective learning processes and results. He lists a number of guidelines for a more community-driven approach to networked learning and leads for further research.

De Laat's research devotes little attention to differing ideas held by academics on how to define Networked Learning, and what its implications are for learning and education. For instance, he ignores the work of George Siemens. An investigation of other definitions could have livened up the debate about this relatively recent interdisciplinary field of research. The choice of the second research environment leaves a number of intriguing questions unanswered. Although I can well imagine his motives, I feel that from chapter 2 his thesis loses some excitement through his more conventional choice of higher education. The first research environment focused on learning in the workplace, with queries about the application of informal learning by a target group that includes various subcultures (i. e. police patrolling the streets, managers and policymakers). The second environment focused on an academic online educational setting with a reasonably homogeneous group of university-educated professionals. De Laat is therefore right to be very reticent in attempting to unite these two worlds.

De Laat says that so long as educators continue to emphasise individual study results, network members' personal (learning) preferences will probably keep playing a significant part. Here he ignores the fact that a possible conflict between shared commercial aims and personal gain/interpersonal competition is also a feature of 'life in the workplace'. References to the literature about professional use of communities of practice (outside the sphere of higher education) could have put such statements in sharper focus.

De Laat says that if we want to apply the community model to a greater degree in higher education, we must ask ourselves whether we cannot make more and richer connections with the world beyond our educational institutions. Examples include dual learning pathways and active involvement of the 'outside world' in the educational context by taking 'virtual' excursions and inviting guest speakers (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996). Here, however, De Laat himself misses an opportunity with his choice of (and focus on) the second research environment. De Laat's case studies make no mention of the deployment of external experts, nor does his focus of research include the part played by communities of practice in the professional workplace.

De Laat's thesis does not contain any further considerations about the effect that a network has on learning. Does De Laat regard networks as a neutral medium, or do technical networks and their configurations influence the performance of their members?

"Networked Learning" provides a clear overview of past research and the instruments used. Written by varying combinations of co-authors, every one of its short chapters is readable in itself. Despite the fact that many conclusions are formulated generically, De Laat easily manages to capture the reader's attention. It is precisely his generic conclusions and references to a wide variety of research that stimulate the inquisitive reader, as hiatuses are also challenges to conduct further research. De Laat's own research, in particular its structure with regard to the community-driven approach, could provide worthwhile food for thought for one of the Dutch ICT and education knowledge networks, thus expanding for the benefit of education the range and applicability of his notions. Another good idea would be if forthcoming research in the corporate sector were to elaborate on De Laat's work.

The research methods pursued by De Laat in the higher education case studies have benefited the research field. His work also provides concrete leads for further research. In a nutshell, this thesis is a source of inspiration to me!

This review is originally published on the SURF E-learning Themesite http://e-learning.surf.nl/e-learning/english