Building on Wenger: communities of practice in nursing

Abstract

Communities of practice (CoPS) provide a potentially useful practice based framework for constructing work based collaborative learning and promoting engagement with local and professional groups and communities. In nursing, we have, increasingly, to manage and deploy new and existing knowledge, although CoPs are currently not widely used to do this. This paper debates the framework created by Wenger and reviews the role of the CoP as an innovative way for educators and practitioners to collaborate to develop and manage new knowledge and emerging practice.