Systems Support for Collaborative Learning

One of the distinguishing features of novel network based learning environments is their capability to support group work and collaboration. TAGS, the Tutor and Groups Support Scheme, is an inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional project, which brings together software systems builders, subject-specialists and educational content developers. Collaborative Learning is central to the pedagogical goals of TAGS, and this has lead to the concept of groups being used as a fundamental organising principle. Groups form the basis of (i) privileges and access control, (ii) information dissemination and event awareness, (iii) teamwork involving shared, multi-user educational resources, (iv) online management of group learning, (v) user-centric portal generation, and (vi) replicated servers. The technical implications of this heavy reliance on the group abstraction are described.