We’ve launched a Communities of Practice Platform and it’s open to all
Our Communities of Practice will be open to anyone interested in participating — including practitioners and community members who are impacted by the government policies we’re trying to shape.
What are the Communities of Practice (CoP)
These informal and loosely organised networks of people and organisations who have come together online and in person to discuss common areas of interest and solve challenges we face in our own work. It’s a place to share ideas, answer questions, and learn from other folks who care about the topics at hand.
How the CoP came to be
We’ve known for a while that there is a need for a place where people interested in topics we care about can go to share ideas, ask questions and find others doing similar work. While we have a fantastic Slack community, it can be difficult to find what (or who) you’re looking for.
What we’ve developed is a place to share ideas, answer questions on specific topics and to engage with the people you may otherwise never have connected with. It’s ultimately a centralised place for problem solving.
The problems we’re trying to solve
The complexity and size of the public service means that teams typically work in silos, and are not incentivised to collaborate on or share the outcomes of their work with others. As a community, we have the opportunity to build connections between related projects and raise awareness of successful outcomes that we support.
Experts working outside the public service, in academic and community settings, often struggle to influence policy making. We want to help ensure external voices have a “seat at the table” when our government is considering emerging technology and new ways of working.
The outcomes we’d like to see
- Collaboration between community members and public sector teams, to share the work of solving common challenges.
- Ensuring a fair representation of society through diversity and inclusion when decisions are made and policy is developed by the government.
- The ability for the Australian public to hold government agencies and corporations accountable, and prevent harm being done to individuals through misuse of technology.
The categories we’re kicking off with
Rules as Code — An emerging field of practice where computers are used to implement laws and regulations. As technologists responsible for implementing these models, how do we ensure that ethical considerations and human rights are at the forefront. This CoP has been initiated in partnership with La Trobe LawTech and the Australian Society for Computers & Law.
Digital Maturity — Increasing the capability and capacity of organisations to embrace both digital technology and culture, with new ways of working creating better outcomes for the people they serve.
Tech for Non Tech — Digitally fluent teams are crucial in the making of technology that is accessible, sustainable and useful to all. Tech for Non Tech is a course run by Code for Australia that helps folks build their digital fluency by deepening their understanding of web development and learning how to work amazingly with developers. We’d like this CoP to serve as a place where past participants can connect with fellow public servants and practitioners about what they’ve learnt and what may be helpful to others.
Design Systems — A design system is a set of components that can be reused in different combinations. Design systems allow you to manage design at scale. We’re exploring the current state of Design Systems across the Australian Public Service, and discussing how we can improve engagement and awareness.
Code for Australia are also open to facilitating further Communities of Practice around new topics or distinct themes that emerge from the initial topics.
The platform we’re using
We’re using Discourse as the platform for our CoPs. We chose it as it’s intuitive, already utilised by many folks working in government, and it’s open source (which we love).
Here’s how we’re using it:
- Joining is easy. Simply head here and create a free account.
- Each Community of Practice will be its own category. You can search for categories on the top left of the discussion board.
- Within each category, you’re able to post topics. Topics can be events, resources, questions or general discussions that pertain to the category.
- Ensure you search through existing topics to ensure what you want to contribute hasn’t been posted already
- If there’s already an existing topic, simply hit reply to contribute.
What’s next?
We’ll be adding more CoP categories as time goes on and we’re going to begin to organise the first meetup. These will serve as a time and place to collectively solve problems and meet some of the folks we’ve been connecting with via the CoPs. Stay tuned!
You can leave us a comment or question in the comments or via Typeform, or reach out to us here, and we’ll be happy to answer all your burning questions!
