Search results

The purpose of this paper is to address the major findings of published research on the factors influencing students’ knowledge building in an online collaborative environment.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses was used to review and synthesize existing empirical studies on knowledge building in a collaborative learning context. In total, 24 studies were identified from major electronic bibliographic databases. The research was conducted between 2017 and 2019. Results of these studies were analyzed to determine potential factors that may influence the knowledge-building process among students.

Factors related to interaction and participation, task, student and support were found to be the major factors driving students’ knowledge building in the online collaborative learning environment. The association between these factors and certain collaborative tasks was mapped.

Findings from this review can help decision makers of higher education in both developing and developed countries to take the necessary steps in order to promote effective knowledge-building practices in online collaborative learning. It may also help educational policy makers to understand the particulars of collaborative knowledge-building practices, so to increase organizational overall effectiveness and performance.

This paper assesses the role of collaborative knowledge building in the co-creation of artifacts in the knowledge management field.

Fifty-eight papers published in six knowledge management-related journals were analyzed. The framework for analysis included 13 codes. Studies were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Findings showed that several factors influenced the co-creation of artifacts in collaborative knowledge building. At the micro level, individual motivation, capabilities and reflexivity seemed to play a central role in co-creation processes. At the meso level, teamwork and shared understanding were identified as two key major factors. At the macro level, structural, behavioral and cognitive factors were identified; they included organizational rules and workplace setting, organizational culture and learning and memory. Managerial agency, characteristics of artifacts and knowledge brokers and boundary spanners also seemed to have an influence at the inter-organizational levels of analysis.

This study has limitations related to scope of contribution, covered time span (17 years) and restrictions in journal subscriptions.

The study will help managers understand the intricacies of collaborative knowledge building practices to increase organizational overall effectiveness and performance.

This study is a first attempt to systematically assess the role of collaborative knowledge building in the co-creation of artifacts, and therefore, it represents a primary reference in the knowledge management field. It proposes some initial propositions that can guide future empirical studies.

Founded in sociocultural theories of learning, the authors argue that engaging learners in collaborative knowledge building is critical. When responding to others’ ideas, research shows that learners in online settings more frequently focus on surface-level aspects of colleagues’ contributions – sharing, comparing and praising – rather than engaging in knowledge building. Collaborative, knowledge-building discourse includes generative interactional practices that feature disagreeing, negotiating meaning, testing and reflecting on co-constructed ideas, summarizing conversations and making metacognitive contributions to discussions. The purpose of this paper is to review studies that show evidence of key design features and pedagogical practices that support collaborative knowledge building by promoting generative interactional practices and particular patterns in interaction.

This conceptual paper presents pragmatic design and instructional guidelines for online course discussions. The purpose is to synthesize existing research and share a detailed framework for supporting generative discussion in asynchronous online work.

The authors review studies that show evidence of key design features and pedagogical practices that support collaborative knowledge building. Design features to promote generative discourse include using the asynchronous nature of online settings to have students work privately, share their work, discuss their work with the class and then revise; providing instructions/discussion criteria that scaffold knowledge building; and using appropriate digital tools that mediate interaction around content. The pedagogical practices that affect patterns of interaction include modeling generative discourse, promoting increased interactions by and between participants and using opportunistic grouping strategies.

The authors include examples from one of their existing online courses that include these design features and pedagogical practices and discuss results from their ongoing work regarding the generativity of learner interactions in this course.

Collaborative knowledge building (CKB) is seen as a means for achieving desired learning outcomes as well as facilitating sharing and distribution of knowledge among community members. However existing CKB studies do not appear to identify and account for the tools used by groups (at individual and group level) as part of the CKB process. The paper aims to address this issue.

The paper describes a group knowledge building exercise within an educational context using activity theory as a descriptive data analysis tool. Data analysis involved conceptualising the CKB process as an activity system in which the group worked towards a shared object and identifying the ensuing contradictions in the CKB activity system.

Results from the analysis illustrate participants' use of reflective thinking processes for resolving contradictions and as a tool for articulating knowledge and developing a shared understanding. Two types of contradictions are identified from the analysis resolving which helped the group to achieve their objective. The efficacy of using activity systems as a holistic and flexible unit of analysis for studying CKB is illustrated through discussion of the results.

The results have educational research implications in terms of developing research tools for analysing CKB, collecting data from a group context, and developing tools for improving group‐work.

The results have practical implications in terms of building knowledge from experience within knowledge communities.

One of the outcomes of the study is the identification of developmental and reflective contradictions which highlight the issues that when addressed allow for successful achievement of the object (or to some degree of success), as well as a richer deeper experience for the participants.

The purpose of this paper is to get a first approximation of the usefulness of online forums with regard to information seeking and knowledge generation.

This study captures the characteristics of knowledge generation by examining the pragmatics and types of information needs of posted questions and by investigating knowledge related characteristics of discussion posts as well as the success of communication. Three online forums were examined. The data set consists of 55 threads, containing 533 posts which were categorized manually by two researchers.

Results show that questioners often ask for personal estimations. Information needs often aim for actionable insights or uncertainty reduction. With regard to answers, factual information is the dominant content type and has the highest knowledge value as it is the strongest predictor with regard to the generation of new knowledge. Opinions are also relevant, but in a rather subsequent and complementary way. Emotional aspects are scarcely observed. Overall, results indicate that knowledge creation predominantly follows a socio-cultural paradigm of knowledge exchange.

Although the investigation captures important aspects of knowledge building processes, the measurement of the forums’ knowledge value is still rather limited. Success is only partly measurable with the current scheme. The central coding category “new topical knowledge” is only of nominal value and therefore not able to compare different kinds of knowledge gains in the course of discussion.

The investigation reaches out beyond studies that do not consider that the role and relevance of posts is dependent on the state of the discussion. Furthermore, the paper integrates two perspectives of knowledge value: the success of the questioner with regard to the expressed information need and the knowledge building value for communicants and readers.

The purpose of this paper is to address the challenge and potential of online higher and continuing education, of fostering and promoting, in a global perspective across time and space, democratic values working for a better world.

The paper presents a generalized dialogic learning architecture of networked collaborative learning and makes a plea for a theory‐informed networked collaborative learning architecture and methodology appropriate for adult learners in higher and continuing education.

Values include mutual political and intercultural understanding, collaboration, and tolerance to cultural and ethical diversity, and they are mediated through collaborative dialogue and knowledge‐building processes between learners. While embedded, empirically, in a networked distance learning context, established through synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies, the paper advocates for theory informed pedagogical designs and a teaching‐learning methodology, which assumes online collaborative dialogue as the centre of a genuine learning process.

The paper complements this plea with a description and evaluation of the implementation of the pedagogical architecture into a Danish Master Programme.

This study aims to examine users’ experiences and perceptions associated with the use of two wiki variants in the context of collaborative learning and knowledge management in higher education.

Participants included two groups of postgraduate students from a university in Hong Kong who used MediaWiki (n=21) and TWiki (n=16) in completing course requirements. Using a multiple case study approach and a mixed methods research design, data logs on the wiki platforms were downloaded and the contents were analysed. Students’ perceptions were examined through a survey.

The findings indicate that both wikis were regarded as suitable tools for group projects, and that they improved group collaboration and work quality. Both wikis were also viewed as enabling tools for knowledge construction and sharing.

This study provides insights that may inform the decisions of educators who are considering the use of wikis in their courses as a platform to enhance collaborative learning and knowledge management.

Previous research has shown that wikis can be effectively used in education. However there are a number of wiki variants and it may be difficult to identify which variant would be the best choice. There is a dearth of research comparing the effectiveness of different types of wikis. This study compares two wiki variants on a number of outcomes which may provide some insights to teachers who are in the process of selecting an appropriate wiki for teaching and learning.

The purpose of this paper is to verify how distributed cognition enhances collaborative problem-solving in the context of projects.

Using qualitative research and in-depth interviews, a sample of 32 project managers with experience in traditional and agile methods acting in Brazil and internationally participated in the research process. The analysis process, utilising coding techniques, involved stages: open, axial, coding and selective coding. These stages encompassed the evaluation of categories based on a hierarchy, in order to determine an appropriate level of abstraction that properly explains theoretical findings.

The results indicate that distributed team cognition is significant for collaborative problem-solving. The data from the interviews allowed the proposal of a model of cognition, and the identification of the elements that support it.

Understand how aspects of distributed team cognition can impact the behaviours of the project professional and contribute to problem-solving in the project environment.

The elements observed affects the collaborative problem-solving by presenting a model of distributed cognition, which is composed by directed communication, collective interaction, trust building and collaborative behaviour.

First, to explore the application of e‐learning as a medium for workplace learning, as a form of adult learning and organisational learning from a theoretical point of view, second, to review empirical studies on recent solutions to pedagogical problems encountered in workplace learning in general and in e‐learning in particular, and finally, to consider the challenges facing the further development of e‐learning solutions targeted at the workplace.

The paper reviews theories of adult learning, workplace learning and organisational learning and brings out main pedagogical implications of these theories from an e‐learning point of view. Some empirical studies in which electronic networks and communication tools have been utilised in workplace learning are also described.

The development of successful e‐learning solutions for the use of work organizations requires integrating research knowledge from different sources: theories of the learning organization, sociocultural theories of learning, and cognitive theories of learning.

Based on empirical examples and the literature review pedagogical challenges and theory‐based guidelines are presented for the design of e‐learning environments for the workplace. These include integration of theoretical knowledge with participants' practical experience, support for the explication of implicit knowledge, and encouragement of collaboration and knowledge exchange between different groups of people.

This paper integrates different theoretical approaches for the design of e‐learning environments of work organizations.

Based on the information commons service model, the aim of this article is to propose a new model for knowledge commons. It seeks to define the conceptual model and constructing framework of knowledge commons, which aim for a collaborative knowledge‐sharing environment to support innovative community activities of university library.

By analyzing the innovation activities of communities, infusing theories of knowledge management, collaboration and Library 2.0, the knowledge commons conceptual model is brought forward to improve communication, collaboration, sharing and conversation.

Since the innovative community is interdisciplinary and cross‐campus, the scattered research team and study group requires a library to extend the services to a logical system, while the virtual layer is to make this spatial decentralized and logically centralized system a reality. The core elements, namely information technology, organization and management, culture and spirit, make up the supporting layer, of which, trust and collaboration culture for innovation is important.

Research work and practice of information commons and library 2.0 have aroused a new round of the library service movement, while the knowledge commons conceptual model would provide steering for a knowledge sharing environment.

In this paper, the new model is based on information commons and assimilating the theories of knowledge management, collaboration and Library 2.0, intended to integrate digital library, physical resource, virtual resource and human resource into a whole. It is of great importance for the library to serve education and scientific research well.