Building and maintaining distributed communities of practice: knowledge management in the OUBS MBA

Building and maintaining "distributed communities of practice" is at the heart of B823 Managing Knowledge, a second-stage elective added to the Open University Business School (OUBS) MBA in October 1999. The course content reflects the expertise of its multidisciplinary development team headed by Paul Quintas, the first professor of knowledge management in the UK. In B823, technologies that support knowledge strategies are examined along current best practice in knowledge management. A key feature of the course is the use of established and state-of-the-art knowledge technologies in creating the distance learning environment.