Building Communities among Software Engineers: The VISEK Approach to Intra-and Inter-Organizational Learning

The paper presents the concepts of the Distributed Center of Competency in Software-Engineering (ViSEK): a German national initiative to encourage intra- and inter-organizational learning in the software industry. Taking a socio-cultural stance, learning is understood as enculturation in a community of practice. So community building becomes an important objective when fostering intra- and inter-organizational learning. The ViSEK-project encourages community building among software-engineers at three different levels: between leading research groups, between research groups and practitioners, and among practitioners from different small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). We describe two approaches for community building more in detail: (a) an internet portal which presents software engineering knowledge and offers functionality for community support, (b) a regional network of SMEs which stimulates learning among its members in the field of usability engineering.