This paper aims to explore the question of whether an online collaborative platform (designed using the framework of a community of practice [COP]) can contribute to collaboration within a large multidisciplinary project and whether it has a role in making the outputs of the project accessible to the wider community of scientists. The original formulation of COPs focused on describing how learning, meaning and identity within a community can translate into a sustained practice. The authors applied this perspective through an online COP (myFNSCloud) designed to develop a community for the consortium (35 beneficiaries) from a range of disciplines in the public and private sectors and evolve into a platform open to external FNS user communities.
A practitioner case study is presented, including a discussion of the current literature of research group development and the challenges experienced, as funders expect a higher level of collaboration between multidisciplinary teams within the requirement for Open Science. Interviews were undertaken with COP members at specific points in the evolution of the platform with an analysis of platform visits and use.
The life cycle of the platform was compared with a standard framework for COP development and variations were identified, which indicate where the design could be enhanced for such large and diverse collaboration working environments. The impact of the COVID pandemic on COP development is also identified.
As a case study, the research lacks generalisability but does contain identified best practice for a new area of application, i.e. large multidisciplinary research projects.
This paper identifies how such a community should be designed and how its evolution can be influenced by other project variables such as administration portals.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to discuss a case of a COP within a multidisciplinary STEM project. As such, it starts the discussion of how COPs can be expanded into research arenas.
