Supporting open-ended discourse with transparent groupware

Abstract

Web-based learning communities need tools that provide specific support to their progressive and open-ended efforts. The paper starts with an overview of some fundamental principles and phenomena underlying the activities of learning communities, and suggests openness and transparency as two crucial requirements for effective tools. In particular, learning communities should be enabled to utilise any available information sources effectively and engage in artifact-centred discourse. We introduce a system called OurWeb, describing both its current features and a number of ideas for improvement. We also report our experiences from a university course, where a group of computer science students worked like an expert community using OurWeb.