Finding and using knowledge

Confidence to use your communities

Creating a friendly and open approach is important to encourage questions and participation. Consider who may be contributing to your community and whether you can offer an anonymous space for questions and contributions.  Remember to ask community members what they want.  There are many ways of gathering feedback – consider setting up an online survey or form, post questions in your online forum, or gather feedback from engagement events.

Facilitation

Communities are about collaboration and the exchange of ideas.  There are lots of ways to encourage engagement.  

Information on a range of facilitation techniques suitable for communities of practice can be found on the KIND Sharing Knowledge site: https://learn.nes.nhs.scot/36912#facetoface

In an online environment remember to make best use of technology to promote community engagement and participation.  Use breakout spaces to encourage conversation in smaller groups, gather feedback using chat function, consider tools which allow anonymous contributions - Jamboard, Padlet etc.

Digital skills

To maximise the usefulness of your community it is important to ensure that members have the skills and confidence to use the technology.  You can encourage engagement by providing training sessions or quick guides to digital tools. Consider making video guides or webinar recordings available to community members.   Overviews of where to find information and how to navigate your digital space can also encourage participation.