Designing social media for informal learning and knowledge maturing in the digital workplace

Abstract

This paper presents an original approach to designing social media that support informal learning in the digital workplace. It adapts design-based research to take into account the embeddedness of interactions within digitally mediated work-based contexts. The approach is demonstrated through the design, implementation, and evaluation of software tools supporting a particular type of informal learning called knowledge maturing. The paper: introduces and presents the rationale for, and concept of, knowledge maturing; presents a new design methodology for developing social media that support informal learning and knowledge maturing; focuses on one prototype, for 'people tagging for organisational development', that was produced by the methodology (and concisely describes two others); presents the formative evaluation of the highlighted prototype; and finally, discusses the implications and insights arising from this work. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.