Abstract:

Communities of practice are used in knowledge management to provide collaborative learning in professional practices. They present themselves in the face-to-face and virtual approaches. A community of practice provides learning in the individual perspective of each participant and in the organizational perspective, that is, it produces interdisciplinary knowledge beneficial to the organization in which it is developed and to its participants.

There is a growing use of digital technologies for collaborative learning in organizations, to promote the dissemination of information, create and distribute knowledge quickly. Online learning has created the basis for the development of virtual learning communities where participants collaborate actively exploring new areas of knowledge. In this context, we are interested in investigating how collaborative learning, through interaction in a virtual practice community, is capable of improving administrative contract management practices, as well as contributing to the integral human formation of its members, in the context of Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS), which is a public Brazilian educational institution. The geographical distances among the IFRS units lead to the development of research in the virtual modality. In this work, we aim to present how communities of practice can contribute to the solution of institutional problems within the scope of public organizations in the perspective of integral human formation.

The methodology consisted of bibliographic research aimed at getting to know communities of practice within the scope of organizations and integral human formation.

Integral human formation brings with it the idea of an education that contemplates the totality of the individual, since it presupposes access to scientific knowledge historically produced, thus having the potential to expand possibilities in society and in the world of work. Based on the findings of this research, a virtual practice community will be conceived at IFRS, with the purpose of providing collaborative learning.

Acknowledgments:
IFRS, ProfEPT.

Keywords:

Communities of practice, integral human formation, public organizations.