ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the emerging paradigm of knowledge dissemination and collaboration in Online Communities. It discusses the functionality of different elements of virtual community spaces such as the discussion forum, digital repository, e-learning resources and collaborative tools that are utilized by various online communities, including engineering and scientific online communities. Professional communities-also known as communities of practice-are communities of professionals who share knowledge and resources. The proposed Knowledge Portal model enables basic community of practice portal requirements. Government and organizational community portals are normally created and run by the government or an organization. The concept of value added services is quite important; it brings up a new model of electronic publishing, which is totally different from the old paper-based publishing model by virtue of facilitating new knowledge creation and aiding in technology transfer to the industry.
