The problems described in the previous section may be expressed and experienced differently by different CoPs according to their own context of emergence (educational or organisational), their status (formal or informal), their story, the number of their members and their own professional domain of practices. The pedagogical and technological solutions to be provided must take into account all the above characteristics.

For example, based on some observations made in the current 11 CoPs involved in the project, which may be classified into four categories: teaching, management, engineering and health, we identified the following facts:

In the teaching domain, teachers need to represent events appearing in the classroom, and share their personal theories, routines and teaching resources. Participants often reflect and debate about different solutions to the same situation, but there is a need to argue about these solutions and represent the choice realised by the group or search other possibilities outside the CoP. The need of development, reification and exploitation of knowledge inside and outside the CoP is also important in this domain to facilitate the entry of novices in the teachers community as well as to support the introduction of pedagogical innovation.

Examples studied in the engineering domain (such as communities of project actors in the aerospace industry) show that collaborative spaces take gradually over specialized tools in the sharing of knowledge about project unrolling and problems solving. Typically, smoothly structured collaborative spaces are considered more efficient than very complex, strongly structured specialized management software. Nevertheless, the currently available tools in the market suffer from being incomplete in terms of knowledge and practices expression and sharing, debating and reflection about practices, as well as development, reification and exploitation of knowledge inside and outside the CoP, while they are not enough customizable for different situations and different contexts of CoPs.

Regarding the management domain, i.e. CoPs gathering managers (like CoPs in the HR management area, business area, management within SMEs), there are also some missing features in the currently available supporting tools. For example, even if forums are very convenient for discussing questions, they become quickly inefficient when it comes to undertaking the process of decision making or when deliberating to come to a decision. The expression and representation of practices is performed in a poorly structured manner that does not allow participants to reify and exploit the related knowledge, while no argumentation principles are followed in the associated debates.

Finally, in all the above domains, there is the prevailing need for solutions that facilitate the engagement of participants in such communities, their active participation in them and the overall individual and organisational learning.