Share Paper: Real Talk in Virtual Spaces: Examining Faculty Knowledge Sharing Cycles in a Social Virtual World

  1. Joe Sanchez, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, United States

Abstract: This paper discusses the pedagogical value of the knowledge sharing cycle of a group of forty-two faculty members in Second Life as part of a multiyear ethnographic study: Becoming: The Evolution of a Learning Organization in a Social Virtual World (Sanchez, 2009). The observations presented are grounded in the analysis of hundreds of chat logs, five online surveys, four virtual focus group sessions, and forty-six in-depth virtual interviews. This paper focuses on the transfer of tacit-to-explicit knowledge through informal socializing in the virtual space.