Creating value for creatives: Considerations in the design and evaluation of an online professional learning community

Authors: Liesel M. Arden & Catherine H. Arden
Artist & University of Southern Queensland, Australia

Edition: Volume 65, Number 3, Special Edition, November 2025

Introduction: Everyday Muse is an online professional learning community for artists and creative entrepreneurs working in the Creative Industries, specifically targeted at people working in the visual arts, creative writing, film and media. Underpinned by a holistic approach to creative and business development, the program focuses on supporting participants to build their knowledge and skills, expand their creative practice and grow their professional networks within a thriving online social learning community. This practice story examines key considerations in designing the Everyday Muse program, drawing on the program designer’s industry experience and making links with theories of transformative and entrepreneurial learning for adult creatives. It reports the results of a collaborative inquiry between the paper’s two co-authors into considerations in the design process, their theoretical underpinnings and assumptions and how these can be critically examined. Additionally, it investigates the application of the Value Creation Framework (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2020) as a tool for assessing the program’s impact, with a particular focus on measuring transformative learning outcomes for artists and creative entrepreneurs working in the Creative Industries.

Keywords: social learning, professional development, creative industries, entrepreneurial learning, value creation framework

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 65:3 The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.