The Major Challenges of Electronic Communities of Practice in an Iranian Leading Virtual University: A Qualitative Approach.

This study aims to examine the major challenges of communities of practice (COPs) in an Iranian leading virtual university. To achieve the main research goal; two-phase research strategy is employed in this paper. At first, knowledge derived from an analysis of the COP literature is used in order to design the interview guide which is needed in the next phase. The second phase consists of a qualitative case study of major Challenges of e-COPs in "Mehralborz" virtual university. The university has almost 600 postgraduate students in the field of management. Seven semi-structured interviews with the e-COPs leaders have been conducted. The investigation led to the discovery of six major challenges that e-COPs struggling with them. The theoreticalbased case study provides practitioners with a complex perspective of the challenges of e-COPs in educational environments and adds originality to the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]