Discusses communities of practice and their role in organizational knowledge. Topics include situated learning and situated actions; distributed cognition; discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and genre analysis; performative perspective; interpretive approach; motivation; creating environments for participation in communities of practice;…

Discusses synchronous communication in learning via the World Wide Web and considers arguments for advantages of asynchronous approaches. Describes a synchronous Web-based professional development program for mathematics teachers in North Carolina and discusses the nature of online communication. (LRW)

Discusses issues related to women's use of new communication technologies and, in particular, how women use personal images to connect with one another online. Offers a glossary and notes some listservs. Offers suggestions for further reading. (SR)

Suggests that interactive group communication technologies, like computer conferencing, de-industrializes the distance education process and hence increases costs. Discusses constructivism, computer mediated communication, programs at Athabasca University (Canada), and implications for distance and campus-based universities. (Author/LRW)

Provides a summary of some of the technical solutions for producing anonymous communication on the Internet and presents an argument that anonymity is as much a part of crime prevention as requiring people to provide their names. Discusses identity theft; the three major techniques that make anonymous cash possible; and anonymizing Internet…

Examined how students drew upon their asynchronous conference discussions in an online course for their written assignments. Found that computer conferencing can give students the opportunity to rehearse discipline-based debates and then exploit these as rhetorical resources in their written work; students use the voices of their peers in ways…

Records data from 98 German male students who participated for 9 weeks in an off-campus online seminar on General Psychology. Findings suggest that the form of communication between the tutor and his or her students is a crucial and important aspect in virtual seminars--this holds true even though supplementary (written) social information about…

Describes a study of a computer mediated graduate course on inclusive community building that explored how students talked about sensitive cultural topics and how the online nature of the course influenced reflection on multiculturalism. Discusses transformative learning, which provided the analytical framework for the study. (Author/LRW)

Examines the therapeutic use of writing therapy in London, England. Discusses the power of writing as a self help vehicle and highlights developments in computer mediated counseling and therapy. Explores the therapeutic uses of writing therapy through cross disciplinary research and practitioner reports. (Contains 68 references and 1 table.) (GCP)

This research note examines the effect that computer mediated communication (CMC) has on learner activity levels in a self-regulated asynchronous learning network environment and investigates whether or not CMC can be used to positively influence the learning experience in a university course. (LRW)

Research in the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is based on a wide variety of methodologies. In this paper, we focus upon content analysis, which is a technique often used to analyze transcripts of asynchronous, computer mediated discussion groups in formal educational settings. Although this research technique is often…

Quantitative content analysis is increasingly used to surpass surface level analyses in computer-supported collaborative learning (e.g., counting messages), but critical reflection on accepted practice has generally not been reported. A review of CSCL conference proceedings revealed a general vagueness in definitions of units of analysis. In…

This paper proposes a set of methods and a framework for evaluating, modeling, and predicting group interactions in computer-mediated communication. The method of sequential analysis is described along with specific software tools and techniques to facilitate the analysis of message-response sequences. In addition, the Dialogic Theory and its…

This Helping You Buy survey is the next in an annual series of surveys that have been compiled by Pamela Cibbarelli in past years. This bird's-eye view should serve to both highlight some general distinctions and to underscore the commodified similarities of a wide range of library automation systems.

Over the past two decades, the rising number of outlets for communication through cable networks and electronic broadcasting (not to mention self-promoting Web "blogs") has stimulated the demand for economic commentary. Only the academic economist, as "public intellectual," can provide this commentary in a coherent and rigorous way via the three…