Virtual community of practiceAn online community of practice (OCoP), also known as a virtual community of practice (VCoP), is a community of practice (CoP) that is developed on, and is maintained using the Internet. To qualify as an OCoP, the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP) as described by Lave and Wenger must be met. To this end, an OCoP must include active members who are practitioners, or "experts," in the specific domain of interest. Members must participate in a process of collective learning within their domain.
Propensity score matchingIn the statistical analysis of observational data, propensity score matching (PSM) is a statistical matching technique that attempts to estimate the effect of a treatment, policy, or other intervention by accounting for the covariates that predict receiving the treatment. PSM attempts to reduce the bias due to confounding variables that could be found in an estimate of the treatment effect obtained from simply comparing outcomes among units that received the treatment versus those that did not. Paul R.
Monde virtuelvignette|Un sous-marin jaune dans le monde virtuel de Second Life. Un monde virtuel est un monde créé artificiellement par un logiciel informatique et pouvant héberger une communauté d'utilisateurs présents sous forme d'avatars ayant la capacité de s'y déplacer et d'y interagir. La représentation de ce monde et de ses habitants est en deux ou en trois dimensions. Ce monde peut simuler le monde réel, avec ses lois physiques telles que la gravité, le temps, le climat, la géographie ou tout au contraire être régie par d'autres.
Primary sourceIn the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions can be used in library science and other areas of scholarship, although different fields have somewhat different definitions.
