What is a
Community of Practice?

The concept of a Community of Practice (CoP) was initially developed to describe social learning within local situated practices. CoPs are distinguished from other types of communities by three things:

  • A domain or joint enterprise is a collective competence that distinguishes the members of the community – it is what we care about. 
  • Mutual engagement describes the intentional aspect of interacting to learn from each other – it reflects who cares about it.
  • Practice takes time and sustained interactions where individuals share tips and tricks for overcoming challenges or making progress, and over time, they develop a shared repertoire of resources.

What is a
Network of Practice?

The CoP concept has since evolved to encompass learning across multiple communities, forming a Network of Practice (NoP).  The collective efforts of these communities shape the “knowledge ecosystem” of the field (i.e., Landscape of Practice, LoP) over time.  In the context of health science programs, establishing a CoP within a department can lay a foundation for an extensive network that spans multiple CoPs within and beyond the institution. 

Burns A, Orange J, Thammasitboon S. Building a Strong Clinician-Investigator Community of Practice in Graduate Medical Education, JGME Rip Out

About Us

The Network of Practice in Health Science Scholarship (NoP-HSS) actively recruits individuals, teams of health professionals, educational units, departments, schools, and other CoPs from diverse regions. These partnerships herald a new era of interconnectedness and shared learning and resources. By uniting a broader array of expertise and assets, this network enhances the collaborative capacity, ensuring that each member can access a richer pool of knowledge, skills, and tools. This collective approach maximizes the impact of individual contributions, fosters innovation, and ensures a more robust, sustainable approach to addressing global health education challenges.

The NoP-HSS efforts have been informed by the following sources:

Lave, Jean; Wenger, Etienne. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991.
Seely Brown, John; Duguid, Paul. The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press; 2000.

Wenger-Trayner E, Fenton-O'Creevy M, Hutchinson S, Kubiak C, Wenger- Traynor B. Learning in Landscapes of Practice. New York, NY: Rutledge; 2015. Wenger E. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; 1998.