Joining and Managing Digital Communities and Online Groups
Digital Communities and Online groups (sometimes called forums, discussion lists or communities of practice) are a good way to stay up to date, share your expertise, seek help, find new opportunities and make professional contacts.
Historic England supports a range of online communities of practice as a tool for sharing knowledge and finding connections in the heritage sector. Explore the communities we support, as well as tools for managing your own online community.
The Online Heritage Community Directory
This is a comprehensive list of useful online communities of practice in the heritage sector, available to all. It includes digital communities and online groups from a range of familiar online platforms. There are many specialist groups, so you are likely to find a group of interest to you.
Consult the Online Heritage Community Directory
Note that groups listed in the directory are, in most cases, not managed by Historic England, and we are not responsible for the content posted on them by others.
Do you know of a digital community or online group that you would like to see added to the Online Heritage Community Directory? Contact us using the email provided below with the details.
The Heritage Workspace Network
As part of our support for these online communities of practice, Historic England runs a network of groups called the Heritage Workspace. The network is hosted on KnowledgeHub, a digital collaboration platform for the public sector.
There are over 30 groups in the network, supporting projects, specialist discussion groups, and communities of interest. Sign up for a free KnowledgeHub account to contribute to groups that may interest you.
Heritage Connects is the open group at the centre of the Heritage Workspace. It is a great place to start if you are looking for a forum-based community, and all general heritage discussion is welcome.
Online communities can be used in a range of ways to support sector collaboration and promotion. Whether you want to start your own group, promote your work, or run a community event, we are always happy to answer any queries.
The Online Communities Review Toolkit
If you run an online community or group, and you want to plan for how it could grow or become more effective, this toolkit will guide you through the process of running an in-depth review. Using a combination of self-assessments, surveys and questionnaires, you will be able to review your community’s performance and impact and make a plan for the future.
The toolkit has been developed for the heritage sector but is suitable for online communities in many other sectors.
Access the documents in the toolkit
Introduction
The document below gives an overview of a practical community of practice review toolkit for those managing such groups.
The tool kit will:
- Enable them to measure and review their own communities
- Help them understand the value their communities bring to their members, their organisations and to the sector
- Provide them with a way to further improve their engagement with online communities within the heritage sector
Step-by-step guide
This guide is designed to help you understand how to use the toolkit effectively to review a community. The toolkit contains templates and guidelines that will help you collect and analyse data to better understand the community being reviewed.
T1: Community background questionnaire
Guidance and templates to help you find out more about your community of practice's background and purpose.
T2: Kick-off meeting
The facilitators' kick-off meeting provides a valuable opportunity to get to know each other, explain the process and the activities that will be taking place, and also run through the 'T1 – community background questionnaire' in more detail.
T3: Community member survey template
In this section, you will find 2 Community Member Survey Communication Templates and 1 Community Member Survey Template. These templates are built to allow community members to share their experiences of being a member, and to find out what they value from their membership and what could be improved.
T4: Self-assessment templates
The community and community manager self-assessments section is broken down into three parts:
- Community MOT template. This template is used to assess the community’s current performance
- Community manager benchmark. This template looks at key aspects of community management
- Community manager time spent. This template examines the amount of time a community manager spends looking after their community
These are to be sent to the community managers after the kick-off meeting and should be completed before the action planning meeting.
T5: Enhancing communities workshop
The Enhancing Communities Workshop section is the final part of the review and brings together all the research from the community background questionnaire, community member survey, community MOT, community manager benchmark and community manager time spent, to help design an outline of future activities for the community.
T6: Final report template
This template gives you a structure to draw together your review findings.
For further support with online communities, contact:
Online Communities
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Email
[email protected]
