A web community to support a cooperative work: "L’Osservatore Romano" case study

This paper presents a case study on the experience of the Vatican City journal “L’Osservatore Romano” referred to the constitution of a work and practice community supported by web technologies. It is a community with a complex organization and geografically distributed, because it involves the publishing firms to which the printing of “L’Osservatore Romano” has been assigned and the task of delivering the Pope’s journal in Argentina, Brasil, India, Mexico, Perù, the United States and Canada. The project has arisen to answer the need to supply “L’Osservatore Romano” with a tool to improve the co-ordination and the spirit of belonging for the workers involved. The elements have been pin-pointed and defined, on which to build a web community, in order to identify and distribute good practices, capitalize professional experiences, stimulate create new knowledge, and codify a common problem solving methodology.