A knowledge-building community is a collection of people that collectively works to product knowledge. A scientific community is perhaps the most obvious example of a knowledge-building community. The communities that self-organize to rate movies, books, and recipes online also represent knowledge-building communities.

The knowledge-building community perspective provides a provocative framework for thinking about organizing instructional experiences. Students can participate in a knowledge-building community by deciding what knowledge will be created, by creating the knowledge, and by evaluating the knowledge.

Between 2000 and 2002, I was involved in a website-development project in which the website was designed around a knowledge-building community perspective. The website was the Arthritis Source, a website which seeks to provide authorized information about arthritis to learners at large. In the context of the knowledge building community perspective, users of the website contributed to determining what knowledge would be created by submitting questions. They also contributed to evaluating the knowledge by rating it. Medical professionals contributed by creating the content requested by users.

The framework of knowledge building community can serve not only web design but also instructional design. One can have a set of learners take on a knowledge-building goal and then work together to create the knowledge. I look forward to exploring this idea in future teaching experiences.