Making Sense of Communities of Practice at the University Level: Connecting Academia and Industries

High-tech entrepreneurship education is the challenge of connecting practical university teaching with well-known concepts of life long learning in companies. New kinds of communities of practice emerge from these efforts. We present experiences made with a course in applied computer science, which was based on this concept. In our “Entrepreneurship and New Media” lab project teams of students worked with two start-up companies. The student teams were connected to each other and to their supervisors in academia and practice through a community system. We present a first qualitative study which evaluate the didactical concept and use of the deployed community system. Finally, we discuss the role communities of practice can play in teaching applied computer science.