ASU's Community of Innovation at the Applied Learning Technologies Institute, is a collective of individuals from throughout the University; faculty and instructors, staff and researchers; all sharing a desire to improve learning, teaching, research, and the processes of creating and distributing knowledge through the integration of new technologies. Exploring the application of existing resources--and driving the development of new technologies, the Community of Innovation leverages the collective experiences, skills, and interests of a vibrant peergroup. Through active communication, at a distance and in-person, the Community strives to establish a common and shared voice toward the enhancement of learning through technology.

The alt^I Community of Innovation is driven by ideas and the forces of change and development that come from individual members of the community. Centralized command and control of ideas and innovation from any single source are the antithesis of a collective intelligence that emerges from the many individuals ideas working together toward achieving similar and loosely unified goals. Sharing of knowledge, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and trans-disciplinary knowledge creation and discovery that drives inquiry, engages and supports all members of the community, and inspires new innovation and discovery are critical to the success and sustainability of the community. Effective use-inspired research in the integration of new methods of knowledge creation, when transparently shared, fostered, and supported across the university benefits individual members of individual disciplines, and ultimately benefits the system as a whole. The greater the number of participants, the more complex and dynamic the system of sharing and knowledge creation is, the more valuable the overall system becomes.

Success and innovation in the context of shared community, collaboration, and collective intelligence are best achieved not by devising a single or unified theory of innovation, nor a single approach, recipe, or formula, for all members of the community to adhere to. Rather, developing and supporting transparent mechanisms of communication and collaboration foster sustained success and community, and from such an environment true innovation will emerge. The Applied Learning Technology Institute Community of Innovation is such an environment of knowledge creation, sharing, collaboration, and distribution. By incorporating a blended approach of traditional community building techniques; local workshops, forums, panel discussions, formal and informal meetings, etc. as well as new and emerging electronic collaboration tools; blogging, electronic discussion forums, interactive video conferencing, digital publishing, etc. individual faculty, staff, academic professionals, researchers, and others from throughout the ASU Community come together to work and share and collaborate in new ways never before experienced in history. From a dynamic community new thinking and new knowledge emerges.