The core features of CSCL: Social situation, collaborative knowledge processes and their design

Abstract

The four articles presented in this issue cover a broad spectrum of topics: the hierarchy of learners, different forms of awareness, group composition and classroom orchestration. The learning contexts also differ significantly, considering collaborative learning in university courses, in organizational e-learning and in vocational training. Accordingly, the student actions and interactions that the different settings aim to induce vary strongly (but return to themes in previous articles): sending and answering requests (Wise et al. 2014), building knowledge using Knowledge Forum (Zhao and Chan 2014) or creating tangible artifacts (Damsa 2014). Even though the surface structures of the four articles are quite different, they all contribute to understanding core underlying topics of CSCL: the influence of social aspects of the collaboration scenario, the type of learning that takes place in collaborative groups and the design of collaborative learning processes.