Cultivating eXtension Communities of Practice

My study empirically describes and analyzes the§characteristics and functionality of the Communities§of Practice used within eXtension, a new initiative§of the Cooperative Extension(CE)system supported§through land-grant universities in every state in the§United States. It also endeavors to lay the §foundation for empirical analysis of community of§practice processes, which to date have been explained§almost exclusively using qualitative case study§methods. Land-grant universities were founded on the §ideals that higher education should be accessible to §all, that the university should teach liberal and §practical subjects and should share the college''s §knowledge with people throughout their states. §eXtension is an educational partnership of§more than 70 land-grant universities. Its reported§purpose is to help Americans improve their lives with§access to timely, objective, research-based §information and educational opportunities accessed§through www.extension.org. This Web site is §customized with links to state land-grant university §Cooperative Extension Web sites. This book§is about the people who are collaborating to create§and publish on http://www.extension.org