Communities are a rich outgrowth of the current state of the world wide web. Cyberculture thrives on community, and a huge variety of diverse groups have formed on the internet, representing various subcultures. Online nursing communities can offer a wide range of useful opportunities - for communion, support, dialogue, collaboration, activism and innovation.

Communities can amplify innovation – when groups get turned on by what they can do online, they go beyond problem-solving and start inventing together. "Groups of people can use online social networks to think together in new ways. When the affinity or common goal shared by the group is strong enough, mastery of group communication media leads people to invent things together in new ways." (H. Rheingold, 2000)

Communities provide an ongoing context for knowledge exchange that can be far more effective than memos, emails and telephone conversations. It is not only important for nurses to focus on building their knowledge assets, but also to make sure that this knowledge is effectively identified, distributed, and shared with peers. "Everyone talks about how knowledge is the important asset. But it has to be applied to be useful. It gets applied via the processes associated with social capital. In order to realize the benefits of working as an aligned, interdependent, system everyone needs to have conversations that are diverse, complex, and deal with everything from key routines to major strategies. Collaboration can be thought of as a network of different conversations" (H. Rheingold, 2000)

Self Organizing Communities as Educational Structures - The author's online presentation on the use of communities in educational collaboration among scholars, professors, instructors and teachers. Self Organized communities potentiate the development of a group identity and even, a group consciousness. A community memory and awareness can be created which facilitates decision making, brain storming, sharing and dialogue.

Nurse Zone - We know how important a nurse's job is. But we also know that there is a whole person who exists away from work. On this site, you'll find information and resources that will help you enhance your career and your life. Earn Continuing Education contact hours, plus get information on fitness, exercise, nutrition, and discounted services and products important to nurses. NurseZone.com also maintains the largest nursing career center on the Internet. That way, if you want to find the perfect nursing job, you'll never need to look at another Web site. If you want to empower your life and your career, you're in the right place. Everything a nurse could want is here!"

Virtual Nurse - Chats, Bulletin Boards, Student Nurses Info and interaction, a FANTASTIC Nursing Search Engine, an ER, An issues section on the Nursing Shortage, Nursing Polls and so much more...............An interesting note: "VirtualNurse and its 5 network sites are for SALE!....If you are a Nursing Recruiter----- this is the setup for you.. Just use the domains to redirect to your site and get hundreds of thousands of new nursing visitors and possible clients."

Nursing Hands.com/Nursing.week.com - News, newsletter, discussions, CE, tools, features, store, student links, search, my page, free reg, support, peer groups, webmasters section, expert contributors, newsletter authoring service, free web space for nurses.