1. The success of the community is at least as important as the success of the projects. The evaluators are there to help us understand what we are doing and celebrate what is working.

2. Investigating the processes that support the emergence of our community

3. Collective inquiry Iterative and ongoing Inform the community tasks and operation Be a tool for positive change Support multiple, differing viewpoints Involve multiple data collection methods and times.

4. Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Ludema). a)What you want more of already exists somewhere in the community b)Communities move in the direction they study

5. Appreciative Questions What processes support the development of the online community? What gives life to the community? What should be the role of the JISC in creating and supporting such communities? What processes support the emergence of technology supported communities?

6. Appreciative Inquiry: The 4-D model DISCOVERY Appreciating the best of what is DREAM Envisioning what could be DESIGN Co-constructing what should be DELIVER Sustaining what will be

7. Interviews Gold nuggets DISCOVERY Sharing Stories Send us a postcard

8. DISCOVERY

9. What you told us… communities dont just happen – organise there is a need for structure, coordination, focus and planning What weve done Provided purposeful, relevant activities with plenty of opportunities for interaction and discussion in small groups DISCOVERY

10. What does this community value? Openness of clusters within elgg, seeing what other clusters are forming Seeing the big picture, it all happening out in the open (online) Speed dating Emerge blog as knowledge capital Validated the informal/social value of networked learning DISCOVERY

11. Visions of Emerge DREAM

14. Continuation e.g. to continue as a space to share practice, interests, thoughts, ideas related to eL. A space to share e.g to disseminate information, as a repository for the exchange of ideas, finding potential research partners, to feedback on experiences. A series of smaller communities where the users have a higher profile and the community architects fade into the background. DREAM

15. The future of EMERGE rests with the fact that it will be a source of social and cultural capital, which will grow and represent cutting edge understandings.