In the past few years, the dramatical technological advances, in particular the Internet and the Web, have changed the way that knowledge is conveyed between tutors and students. Distance learning systems are supposed to facilitate this knowledge transfer by harnessing potentials of these new technologies. However, there is no integrated learning environment available up to now which can support various teaching and learning scenarios of students and tutors in a consistent way. Most existing distance learning systems only support limited teaching and learning activities. Students and tutors must move between different tools in their different learning and teaching phases. In particular, current distance learning systems often put great emphasis on information sharing (i.e. preparation, distribution and utilization of electronic learning material) and have not offered effective approaches to interaction and collaboration among students as well as between students and tutors who are dispersed across time and space. Communityware and groupware are expected to support interaction and collaboration between people. But studies have shown that they have developed separately in the past. While communityware is primarily concerned with creating, maintaining, and evolving social interaction in communities, groupware is aimed at supporting groups of people engaged in a common task and pursuing a common goal. The task of the thesis is then to incorporate both communityware and groupware to design and develop an integrated learning system. The research method adopted in this thesis is to have each chapter focus on a few key issues from CSCW and then apply these discussion results to develop the targeted system model. First of all, a pyramid model consisting of lectures, discussion groups and learning groups in educational settings will be defined by investigating issues remaining in existing CSCW and distance learning systems. To support community interaction and groupwork seamlessly, we will extensively examine spatial approaches to communities and groups. Such a discussion will lead us to a spatial framework comprised of an entrance hall, a discussion group, a tutor studio and several learning groups. Then an artifact-based model used to design group rooms will be discussed, and a set of key components facilitating both interaction and collaboration between people within the spatial world will be presented. In addition, a notification server will be extensively investigated because both synchronous and asynchronous awareness play a key role in facilitating interaction and collaboration between people. A set of new technologies for distance learning such as Web-Based Information Systems, and XML/XSL technologies will be addressed in great detail as well. Though this work is oriented at supporting interaction and collaboration in educational settings, it can, of course, be applied for other working environments as long as both interaction and collaboration have to be supported because most organizations work in communities, groups and teams.     «

In the past few years, the dramatical technological advances, in particular the Internet and the Web, have changed the way that knowledge is conveyed between tutors and students. Distance learning systems are supposed to facilitate this knowledge transfer by harnessing potentials of these new technologies. However, there is no integrated learning environment available up to now which can support various teaching and learning scenarios of students and tutors in a consistent way. Most existing dis...     »

Im Rahmen der vorgestellten Arbeit wurden neuartige Konzepte zur Unterstützung der Interaktion und Kooperation zwischen Lernenden und Lehrenden in Bildungsumgebungen entwickelt und implementiert. Als wesentliches Ziel wird hierdurch eine Untersuchung sowohl der Communityware und Groupware Systemen als auch Distance Learning Systemen erreicht. Die Arbeit umfasst alle wesentlichen Aspekte der CSCW Systemen - von Artifact-Based Model, Notification Server, bis zu Lightweight Connections, Role-Based Privacy Control, und History Management. Mit der prototypischen Implementierung der Lerngruppen konnte die sich aus der Dissertation ergebenden Konzepte in der Praxis nachgewiesen werden.     «

Im Rahmen der vorgestellten Arbeit wurden neuartige Konzepte zur Unterstützung der Interaktion und Kooperation zwischen Lernenden und Lehrenden in Bildungsumgebungen entwickelt und implementiert. Als wesentliches Ziel wird hierdurch eine Untersuchung sowohl der Communityware und Groupware Systemen als auch Distance Learning Systemen erreicht. Die Arbeit umfasst alle wesentlichen Aspekte der CSCW Systemen - von Artifact-Based Model, Notification Server, bis zu Lightweight Connections, Role-Based...     »