As one of the main activities of the first year work in the empirical strand, the ethnographic studies have started. After the pre-study in May by University of Innsbruck at the associate partner GISA, the main studies have now started:

• Synaxon (by University of Paderborn),
• Klinikum Karlsruhe (by FZI),
• Swisscom (by FHNW),
• STRUCTURALIA (by CIMNE),
• and at Connexions KENT (by UWAR and PONT)

All of them are partners or associate partners of MATURE.

These studies explore the current practices related to knowledge maturing and particularly focuses on experienced barriers. Ronald Maier and Stefan Thalmann from University of Innsbruck have prepared detailed guidelines for the ethnographers and assisted the start of the studies at the different sites.

Stefan Thalmann and Ronald Maier will present the first results from analyzing the pre-study (a typology of informal learners) at the Learning in Enterprise 2.0 workshop at the ECTEL 2008 conference.

Graham Attwell started a discussion on communication toools based on his study experiences.

SYNAXON employees blogged about the ethnographic study (in German).