Drawing on research and practice, this key text provides a rich, detailed and accessible guide to Communities of Practice (CoP) theory and how to implement it within higher education. It takes a detailed look at how the theory is constructed, the research that it rests on and the ways that it has been used and can be used in the future.

1. What is a Community of Practice? 2. Where is the learning in a Community of Practice, and how does it happen? 3. Communities of Practice in Higher Education: What can we learn from the research? 4. Setting up a Learning Architecture 5. Communities of Practice: expansions and limitations 6. Constellations, brokers and boundaries: how Communities of Practice learn from and work with each other 7. Assessment within a Community of Practice 8. Research and Communities of Practice