How to promote informal learning in the workplace? The need for incremental design methods

📝 Abstract

Informal Learning in the Workplace (ILW) is ensured by the everyday work activities in which workers are engaged. It accounts for over 75 per cent of learning in the workplace. Enterprise Social Media (ESM) are increasingly used as informal learning environments. According to the results of an implementation we have conducted in real context, we show that ESM are appropriate to promote ILW. Nevertheless, social aspects must be reconsidered to address users’ needs regarding content and access, quality information indicators, moderation and control.

💡 Analysis

Informal Learning in the Workplace (ILW) is ensured by the everyday work activities in which workers are engaged. It accounts for over 75 per cent of learning in the workplace. Enterprise Social Media (ESM) are increasingly used as informal learning environments. According to the results of an implementation we have conducted in real context, we show that ESM are appropriate to promote ILW. Nevertheless, social aspects must be reconsidered to address users’ needs regarding content and access, quality information indicators, moderation and control.

📄 Content

How to Promote Informal Learning in the Workplace?
The Need for Incremental Design Methods Carine Touré1,3, Christine Michel1 and Jean-Charles Marty2 1 INSA de Lyon, Univ Lyon, CNRS, LIRIS, UMR 5205, F-69621 Villeurbanne, France,
2 Université de Savoie Mont-Blanc, CNRS, LIRIS, UMR 5205, F-69621 Villeurbanne, France,
3 Société du Canal de Provence, Le Tolonet, France {carine-edith.toure, christine.michel, jean-charles.marty}@liris.cnrs.fr Keywords: Lifelong Learning, Informal Learning, Knowledge-Sharing Tools, Enterprise Social Media, User-Centered Design, Adult Learner. Abstract: Informal Learning in the Workplace (ILW) is ensured by the everyday work activities in which workers are engaged. It accounts for over 75 per cent of learning in the workplace. Enterprise Social Media (ESM) are increasingly used as informal learning environments. According to the results of an implementation we have conducted in real context, we show that ESM are appropriate to promote ILW. Indeed, social features are adapted to stimulate use behaviors and support learning, particularly meta-cognitive aspects. Three adaptations must nevertheless be carried out: (1) Base the design on a precise and relatively exhaustive informational corpus and contextualize the access in the form of community of practice structured according to collaborative spaces; (2) Add indicators of judgment on the operational quality of information and the informational capital built, and (3) Define forms of moderation and control consistent with the hierarchical structures of the company. Our analysis also showed that an incremental and iterative approach of user- centered design had to be implemented to define how to adapt the design and to accompany change. 1 INTRODUCTION Lifelong learning is an approach to education that has been addressed since the 1970s to provide the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in a rapidly changing world (Sharples, 2000). It includes formal, non-formal and informal learning (Commission of the European Communities, 2000). Unlike informal learning, formal and non-formal learning are structured with tools or training sequence. The latter occurs during daily experiences, while working or interacting with other people. It is characterized by the merger of learning with the everyday work activities in which workers are engaged (Longmore, 2011) and is motivated by personal needs. Informal learning is of central importance for enterprise since it accounts for over 75 per cent of learning in the workplace (Bancheva and Ivanova, 2015). It is the most important way to acquire and develop skills required in professional contexts.
The Knowledge Management (KM) research field promotes the management and maintenance of knowledge sharing in the workplace. Three generations of technologies were privileged for informal learning (Ackerman et al, 2013; Hahn and Subramani, 1999). Two main strategies can be identified to manage knowledge: valuation of informational capital and valuation of human capital with collaboration (Ackerman et al, 2013; Wenger, 2000). The first generation considers that workers can continuously learn and be able identify solutions to problems they can meet during working activities. They have to look for information on processes and know-how related to their activity. To support them, enterprises produce relatively exhaustive information corpuses on working activity and make them accessible. Despite their exhaustiveness, these knowledge databases remained most of the time unused because they were maladjusted to collaborators needs and characteristics; particularly regarding information access and training (Hager, 2004; Graesser, 2009). Moreover, access tools to this information are not dedicated to learning process. Indeed, Graesser (2009) recommended to privilege training objectives based on auto-regulation and meta-cognition ; and by this way help learners to “learn how to learn’. He describes (Graesser, 2011) various principles based on fun, feedback or control to support learning.
The second generation focus was on expertise sharing and identification of experts able to provide useful information to collaborators. Communities of practice (CoP) were commonly adopted by enterprises to help practitioners express, share and exploit their knowledge (Pettenati and Ranieri, 2006; Wenger, 2000). Direct interaction between peers was recognized to facilitate knowledge transfer and improve information quality (Wang, 2010). However, the lack of information completeness, accuracy in identification and recommendation of expert, privacy protection and control revealed some limits (Ackerman et al, 2013). CoPs have remained hardly ever used.
The third generation combines principles of both first and second generations. It is characterized by collaborative information spaces merging information repositories, communication

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