The information society (Castells, 2003) and the knowledge society (Fedoroff, 2012) have emerged from a new social paradigm in the context of the fast development of information and communication technologies (ICT), which also had an influence in education and training and determined new key and serious issues of change in higher education teaching.
ICT have been used in various education and trainingscenarios for a long time, assisting in the development of collective knowledge and continuous learning, allowing anyone to share, anytime and anywhere, problems, solutions and perspectives.
Studies on the theme of higher education teaching, with regard to training and pedagogical upgrading, support the assertion that little attentionhas been paid to this segment of education which, according to researchers (Behrens, Ferreira, Carpim, 2013; Bolzan, Isaia, Maciel, 2013; Masetto, 2010; Cunha, 2009; Franco e Krahe, 2007; Mizukami, Ferenc, 2005), can be seen as a field in which there is much to be done in terms of research and practice.
Trying to make a contribution to this research topic, we have planned a research project aiming to design, develop, implement, test and promote an online community of practice for the training and pedagogical update of higher education lecturers and professors from Portuguese language speaking community. In this research, the research question to be answered is how to develop training and pedagogical upgrading of higher education teaching staff in an online community of practice?
According to Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) communities of practice are groups that have concerns and interests in a certain subject, which deepen knowledge and expertise through exchange of information, ideas and tips in order to cooperate in solving problems in order to create projects or develop tacit understanding on a topic. This cycle of knowledge development of staff for network organization allows members to remain updated in their field through the network connections (Siemens, 2008). It is also expected that individuals can deliver better results than if they acted individually, overcoming the obstacles of common constraints of time and distance that hamper the implementation of these activities. In a group, the complementation of capabilities, knowledge and individual efforts may occur; the interaction of people with understandings, views and complementary skills may provide the members of a group to receive feedback on inconsistencies and flaws in their reasoning. Together, and as a group, participants can search for ideas, information and referrals to assist in solving problems (Fuks, Gerosa and Lucena, 2002). For the context of Portuguese speaking countries or communities , this process becomes necessary in relation to higher education, since this was established by the Declarations of Luanda (2002 e 2011) and Fortaleza (2004), which marked the beginning of the convergence process towards the Higher Education Space (HES) of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), planned to 2014. This orientation can be understood in the European context, regarding the Bologna Declaration, where the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was designed, once Portugal is inserted in both communities.
