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In addition, some new types of roles arise from CoPs, such as membership manag-
ers, discussion moderators, knowledge editors, knowledge librarians, archivists, usage
analysts, and knowledge brokers. A CoP membership manager has to deal with the
registration and ongoing membership directory work. A CoP moderator is much like
a radio or TV show host. They act as conversation managers who help keep discus-
sions focused, inject new topics, add provocative points of view when discussion
lags, and seed the discussion with appropriate content. They must often be critical
in order to ensure value generation. Knowledge editors collect, sanitize, and synthe-
size content created and they provide a value-added link for the content produced.
A knowledge librarian or community taxonomist is responsible for organizing
and managing the collection of knowledge objects generated by the community. A
knowledge archivist maintains and organizes content generated by participants over
time.
A CoP usage analyst studies data on participants ’ behaviors within the community
and makes recommendations to the host. Finally, a knowledge broker is someone who
can join up with a number of different communities in order to identify commonali-
ties and redundancies, create synergy, form alliances, and feed in to organizational
memory and learning (e.g., map of intellectual assets, yellow pages, or expertise direc-
tory, CoP best practices, and lessons learned).
Finally, there will be some new roles and structures at the organizational level. For
example, the World Bank inspired knowledge management at CIDA (Canadian Inter-
national Development Agency). CIDA has implemented over 400 best practices,
lessons learned, and 30 communities of practice. There is coordination of branch
sharing activities through the CIDA KM Secretariat. The CIDA KM Secretariat in the
Senior VP ’ s offi ce has a staff of four to fi ve, to enable better knowledge sharing within
and among branches. This offi ce works closely with two organizations: the Branch KM
Leaders group (which has a representative from each of the thirteen agency branches)
develops the KM agenda, expected results, communication strategy, and specifi c KM
issues. The Network (CoP) Leaders group (which consists of the leaders of each of the
pilot CoP networks) helps networks learn from each other, achieve their objectives,
share lessons learned, and solve problems.

Knowledge Sharing in Virtual CoPs
The establishment of a community identity depends heavily on knowledge sharing.
Even something as simple as an online or paper newsletter will provide the backbone
for a community to develop. A sense of community arises from reading the same
text, the same article, and the same announcement as discussions can grow around