Constructing Guidelines for Building Communities of Practice for  Supporting Faculty Professional Development in Electronic Environments

Faculty who teach online courses at large research institutions have unique professional development and support needs. Communities of practice may provide a solution to feelings of isolation reported by faculty who teach online courses. Through a community of practice faculty may offer support to each and share online instructional best practices. Using a developmental study, research-based practices were operationalized using the ADDIE model to form guidelines for building and maintaining a virtual community of practice for online teaching faculty. An expert review validated and led the revision process for the set of guidelines. This study describes the development of the guidelines, the expert review, and the validation of the final product.