A Framework for Designing Collaborative Tasks in a Web-Environment

We present a framework that considers both the collaboration activities as well as the tools involved combining the artifact and process oriented approaches of knowledge engineering. Following the framework stages, we designed an Asynchronous Learning Network with a collaborative environment that enables structured collaboration between group members. Hundred and fifty (150) university students divided into teams of ten members each performed two collaborative tasks within a university course. As a preliminary evaluation we classified the messages sent by students within the discussion forum. Feedback on uploads increased significantly in the second assignment indicating that students besides performing their own task also took part in other group’s tasks creating a cooperative group that produced a collaborative outcome. We discuss the suitability of the framework for the design of Collaborative Environments for knowledge sharing and raise a few topics for further research.