This dissertation examines how instructional designers navigate the daily challenges of their work as a group; how do they successfully respond to the changing demands of designing instruction for online learning; and replicate their work and practices in higher education context. This is accomplished by investigating the role of instructional design process in transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge through communities of practice. This study was designed to address four research questions: (1) What are the attributes of the instructional design process at Online Learning Unit? (2) How do instructional designers at Online Learning Unit describe their roles within the instructional design process? (3) How do roles of the faculty and instructional design process influence the roles of instructional designers? And (4) how do the instructional designers at Online Learning Unit build and utilize their community of practice? To answer these research questions a collective case study was conducted in a higher education setting under IRB #19-321-00. Participants of this study were instructional designers and their director who have been working with Colleges of Engineering and Liberal Arts and Sciences, to support online course design and delivery, at a state university in the mid-west United States. Findings of this research for each research question are the following. (1) Instructional design process is an iterative, collaborative, continuously reflective partnership. (2) Roles of the instructional designer are collaborator, mentor, coach, motivator, partner, and technical support. (3) There are three aspects that influence the roles of instructional designers within the instructional design process: time and time-management; course needs; and faculty experiences. (4) There are two ways instructional designers can build their communities of practice: (i) among themselves through their weekly meetings and impromptu conversations and (ii) with faculty that they work with through their weekly meetings during the design and development phases of an online course. In the light of these findings, higher education organizations can benefit from supporting and fostering instructional design communities of practices where instructional designers transform not only their tacit knowledge, but also that of the organization's. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]