This document summarizes a presentation about establishing communities of practice (CoPs) to engage adjunct LIS faculty as educators. It discusses the theoretical framework of CoPs, benefits for adjuncts and LIS education, examples of CoPs in an LIS program, challenges encountered, and solutions implemented. These include using an LMS classroom for orientation and support, faculty learning sessions, connecting faculty face-to-face, and an action research project to evaluate existing CoPs and develop guidelines. The presenters welcome further discussion.

1. Engaging Adjunct LIS Faculty as Educators
through
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
ALISE Annual Conference, January 2017
Sarah W. Sutton, PhD (@sarahwws)
Sandra Valenti, PhD (@sandyvalenti1)

2. Today’s Presentation
✴Theoretical framework from which our
COPs are developing
✴Benefits of COPs for LIS
✴COPs in SLIM
✴Challenges encountered at Emporia State
✴Solutions to those challenges
✴Action research project

3. Wenger & Lave Framework
While studying apprenticeship as a
learning model, anthropologist Jean
Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991)
discovered a complex set of social
relationships through which learning
takes place mostly with journeymen
and more advanced apprentices.
The term community of practice was
coined to refer to the community that
acts as a living curriculum for the
apprentice.

4. Wenger’s Model

5. CoPs in Higher Education
✴Provide solutions to common challenges to adjunct
support:
✓ lack of preparation to teach (Taft, 2012)
✓ provision of support to those who are
geographically distant from the home institution
(Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003)
✓ improved communication stream (Baker &
Beams, 2016)
✓ Can also be beneficial for new on-site faculty

6. Benefits to Adjuncts
✴Knowledge sharing & informal exchange of ideas
✴Sense of community
✴Collaboration, sharing of resources
✴Sharing tacit knowledge between full time and adjunct
faculty
✴Better teaching
✴Improved student learning
(Guzzo, 2013; Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003; Taft, 2012; Web, Wong, & Hubball, 2013)

7. Benefits for LIS Education
✴Informal exchange of ideas
✴Synchronous or asynchronous format (web
conferences, recorded or live) gives access to all
✴Opportunity for adjunct faculty to interact with the
learning management system as a student
✴Practitioners can share day-to-day experiences in
the library environment
✴Topic-specific groups (leadership, organization of
information, archives, etc.)

8. Benefits for LIS Education
✴A more standardized student experience via common
assignments
✴Allows national adjunct
faculty freedom and
creativity in course
building
✴Opens better channels
for discussion

9. CoPs in SLIM
✴Connect geographically distributed adjunct faculty
✴Organized by functional area
✴Led by full time, tenure track faculty
✴Formalized in anticipation of reaccreditation
✴Provide learning opportunities related to how &
what they teach

10. CoPs in SLIM
✴Integrate adjuncts' expertise and knowledge with
the SLIM program outcomes and values.
✴Benefit new and junior faculty as well as adjuncts
✴Create relationships between faculty and
practitioners
✴Sharing & learning in functional areas and
pedagogy

11. Challenges Encountered
✴Lack of time
✴No “strong” leader for all
communities
✴Lack of systems access
when off contract
✴Asynchronous nature of
coast-to-coast living
✴Variance in technology
skills Dali: The Persistence of Memory

12. Challenges to Explore
✴Power, trust, predispositions, and size & spacial reach
(Roberts, 2006).
✴Influence of communications technology on CoPs
(e.g. Fox, 2000)
✴Stigma attached to sharing learning resources?
✴Common understanding of the type and pace of the
community (Roberts, 2006)
✴Sustaining engagement (Reilly, Vandenhouten,
Gallagher-Lepak, 2012)

13. Solutions to Challenges
✴LMS-based "Orientation & Ongoing Support"
classroom
✴Faculty learning brown-bag lunches
✴Connecting face-to-face at distance teaching sites
✴CoP meetings for faculty and adjuncts to review
syllabi and assignments before each semester
✴The timely use of discussion prompts to spur
conversation
✴Literature- and research-based solutions

14. Solutions to Challenges
✴What would you do?

15. Action Research Project
Source: Valencia College
All Aboard: Developing a Robust
Community of Practice

16. Action Research Project
Some questions:
✴What does each CoP “look like” today?
✓hat works well?
✓hat needs improvement?
✴What power structures have already developed?
✴How effective is each CoP?
✓Based on faculty opinion
✓Based on national adjunct faculty opinion

17. Action Research Project
After evaluating responses, web-based focus groups
will help in the development of guidelines for activity.

18. References
Fox, S. (2000). ‘Communities of practice, Foucault and actor-network theory’. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6), 853–67.
Guzzo, L. R. (2013). Case study: The transfer of tacit knowledge from community college full-time to adjunct faculty. ProQuest LL
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Reilly, J. R., Vandenhouten, C., & Gallagher-Lepak, S. (2012) Faculty development for e-learning: multi-campus community of p
Roberts, J. (2006). Limits to communities of practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3).
Schnitzer, M., & Crosby, L. S. (2003). Recruitment and Development of Online Adjunct Instructors. Online Journal of Distance Le
Taft, M. M. (2012, January 1). Fostering higher order critical thinking in 21st century teachers. ProQuest LLC.
Webb, A. S., Wong, T. J., & Hubball, H. T. (2013). Professional development for adjunct teaching faculty in a research-intensive

19. Continue the Conversation
Sarah Sutton: ssutton3@emporia.edu
Sandy Valenti: svalenti@emporia.edu