Guidelines for Communities of Inquiry & Practice

By Claude Whitmyer

The tools of web-based meetings, virtual teams, and online or blended classrooms will help us meet the challenges of today’s rapidly changing commerce and learning sectors.

Oldest and perhaps foremost among those tools is the online bulletin board or discussion forum. At FutureU™, we feel duty bound to provide discussion forums that are safe and comfortable, that provide our clients, customers, students, and peers with a place to communicate what’s on our minds, deepening our learning together and improving the effectiveness of our communications.

To help create this open and friendly environment, whether using forum software provided by FutureU™ or something from within your own organization, we ask that all participants agree to the following community norms.

These norms will evolve as the community grows but let’s begin with these agreements:

First, by participating in any of FutureU’s events or activities you explicitly agree that every participant’s words are their own and that, together, we are creating shared meaning. You further agree to…

participate thoughtfully and respond in a timely manner
be open to new ideas and possibilities
be responsible for asking for what you want or need
operate in the spirit of open inquiry, knowing there is no one right answer, but everyone has part of the answer
question your own assumptions and examine them as deeply as possible
consider all points of view and listen with care not only to the words themselves, but what’s behind them as well
keep people’s postings and other contributions confidential, unless permission is explicitly given by the author to do otherwise
respond to others’ requests by being explicit about your agreement or lack of it
take personal responsibility to actively clear up any issues as they arise with the person or people directly involved

A note about etiquette. Keep in mind that comments entered in hasty reaction to someone else’s posting will be available for others to read long after you have entered them. So it is wise to exercise moderation and tolerance. If you feel yourself writing a note in anger or some other negative emotion, don’t send it. Wait a day and then rewrite it from a more neutral place, if at all.

By participating in any of FutureU’s online spaces or activities, you are explicitly agreeing to our right to ban anyone who disrupts a discussion or the community at our discretion and with no recourse to appeal.

To read FutureU’s guide to “Netiquette (Internet Etiquette)” click here.

Finally, participants are bound by legal restrictions that are an unfortunate requirement of today’s pirate-mad and lawsuit-happy environment. The “Terms & Conditions of Use” basically say that participants will respect FutureU’s intellectual property rights and will behave toward each other with the decency and manners that will avoid legal conflicts among participants or between FutureU™ and participants.