Community Guiding Principles

Overview

More than a decade ago, DAU embarked on a journey to expand the learning environment of the Defense Acquisition Workforce by employing the use of Communities of Practice to engage the workforce in sharing and collaborating knowledge and ideas. Although the communities of practice were initially focused on acquisition career fields, they have now expanded to include topics related to both acquisition and business, have more than 80,000 members, receive more than 1 million unique visitors annually, and have nearly half of a million page views per month. Many workspaces have been established to support the collaboration needs of the workforces, and the communities allow users to share and connect across organizational boundaries. The social aspect of the communities invites users to participate in contributing content, responding to questions and comments, and engaging in professional networking.

Now more than ever, Communities of Practice play a central role in helping the workforce to stay connected and traverse the dynamic landscape of the acquisition environment. They provide the acquisition workforce with the tools, resources, and connections needed to successfully perform on the job. The DAU portal and CoPs are well suited to support today's changing acquisition environment and are vital to developing a culture that continuously learns, shares learning, and acts upon that learning.

Principles

The DAU Communities of Practice operate on the following principles:

• Objectives support the acquisition community. A community supports the business drivers and objectives of the acquisition community and adds value.
  
• Members are volunteers. Community membership and participation is voluntary. 
  
• Communities are self-directing. Communities set their own agenda and determine their own focus.
  
• Content must be managed according to best practices. Communities are responsible for the configuring and maintaining their content. Content must be regularly reviewed for accuracy and currency, and any outdated content must be archived or removed. Additionally, content must follow the processes and policies outlined in Content Contribution Governance for Communities.
• Responsibilities are shared. Each community has a Community Sponsor, a Community Leader, and a Community Moderator/Editor. However, all members are responsible for contributing accurate, reliable, and current content and providing feedback to the Community Moderator/Editor.
• One copy of a document. Documents are to be published in one Community only. If your Community does not own the content, do not upload a copy. Instead, publish a link to the document from your site.
• User experiences are consistent. Communities will adhere to a consistent theme and user interface for unity and easing navigation.
  
• Users with key community roles accept specific responsibilities. Community Roles and Responsibilities are assigned and operate within the established governance for communities.
  
• Community content may not include classified information. Community members, editors, and leaders must ensure that content accessible by the public is releasable to the general public and that information in restricted workspaces conforms to applicable DoD policy and guidance. Under no circumstances will business sensitive, FOUO, or classified information of any level be posted on community sites.
  
• Communities must comply with all copyright laws. Copyrighted materials may not be posted unless the exception complies with the Community Rules of Engagement.