Harnessing P2P power in the classroom

Abstract

We have implemented a novel peer-to-peer based environment called Comtella, which allows students to contribute and share class-related resources. This system has been implemented successfully in a fourth year undergraduate course on Ethics and IT. The intermediate results of the ongoing experiment show a significant increase in participation and contribution in the test version in comparison with a previous offering of the class where students contributed class-related resources via their own personal web-sites. Our ongoing and future work focuses on motivating higher levels of participation and getting students involved in the quality control of the contributions aiming at a selforganizing virtual learning community. © Springer-Verlag 2004.