Designing Online Environments for Expert/Novice Collaboration

Abstract

/ Designing environments that can bring novices and experts together is not trivial. We explore how we can design environments where these collaborations happen in such a way that everyone benefits. We explore these questions in the context of one such environment. In this study, we used the Game Ontology Project (GOP), a wiki-enabled hierarchy of elements of gameplay used by game studies researchers, in a game design class. Students found that their participation was enjoyable and useful for learning. Also, there is evidence that they developed a deeper understanding of the medium of videogames. However, encouraging sustained participation was challenging because students tended to view the GOP as a static source, rather than a participatory and editable resource. Expert analysis of the students’ contributions to the ontology found them to be useful and significant. We conclude with thoughts on the importance of these kinds of authentic environments in traditional learning.