Identifying Coordination Agents for Collaborative Telelearning

Barbara Wasson (1)

1 InterMedia

This paper deals with identifying roles for coordination agents in a future collaborative telelearning environment. The current practice of students participating in a net-based simulation marketing game on-campus, is studied with an eye on designing a future collaborative telelearning environment where this same net-based simulation game will be central. The work described in this paper is situated within the theoretical foundations of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In particular Salomonâs writings on genuine interdependence in CSCL, and work on coordination from a computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) perspective provide the view on collaborative telelearning. Viewing collaborative telelearning from a coordination theory perspective offers a means of understanding the inter-relationships between actors and entities and how these relationships can and should be supported. In this paper an extended definition of coordination is given and a set of actor (inter)dependencies and related coordination processes for collaborative telelearning is proposed. Then, coordination agents are suggested as a means of managing and supporting the identified (inter)dependencies and examples of possible coordination agent roles are given. (http://aied.inf.ed.ac.uk/members98/archive/vol_9/wasson/full.html)

Keywords: e-learning; collaborative telelearning; coordination

Domains: Technology for Human Learning

Barbara Wasson. Identifying Coordination Agents for Collaborative Telelearning. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 1998, 9, pp.275-299. ⟨hal-00197381⟩