Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

aforementioned gap. In particular, CoPe_it! aims
at reconsidering the notion of formality in argumentative
collaboration systems. Within CoPe_it!
formality is not considered a rigid property of the
system, but rather an adaptable aspect of it. It
builds on the assumption that argumentative collaboration
environments are environments where
understanding occurs through the emergence
of the collaboration space. This emergence is
characterized by small and incremental changes
of the available items in the collaboration space
that - although local in nature - when accumulated
lead to global transformation of the collaboration
space into something that is useful for the task at
hand. In particular, CoPe_it! attempts to provide
the framework to support the emergence of decisions
in online collaborations. Within the CoPe_it!
approach, the notion of emergence is conceived on
two levels: emergence within a shared collaboration
space where individual items are transformed
into prospective solutions and emergence between
shared collaboration spaces where the collaboration
is transformed into a decision. In CoPe_it!
these two forms of emergence are considered as
related as emergence between shared collaboration
spaces is based on emergence within shared
collaboration spaces. To implement this framework,
CoPe_it! introduces the notion of incremental
formalization into argumentative collaboration
research drawing upon approaches that have been
well established in other related areas of research,
such as hypertext (Marshall & Shipman, 1997;
Shipman & McCall, 1994), knowledge management
and CSCW (Cox & Greenberg, 2000). The
rest of the chapter is organized as follows: first
we outline the motivation and discuss the notion
of emergence in argumentative collaboration. We
then review existing systems with respect to their
ability to support emergent structures and decision
making and present the mechanisms provided by
CoPe_it! to address the main concerns. The last
section concludes the chapter and identifies issues
for future work.
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MOTIVATION
From ‘Collecting’ to ‘Deciding’
Two factors stimulate our work to reconsider the
way, argumentative collaboration is currently
supported by existing systems: the emphasis of
these systems on formalization and the coming
of the so-called Web 2.0 era.
Existing argumentative collaboration tools emphasize
on formality, i.e. the provision of a fixed
set of abstractions and rules, with well defined
semantics, to which all participant actions must
comply. Their main aim is to provide the tailored
yet fixed vocabulary to articulate all involved
considerations (ideas, positions etc) in a way that
is close to the domain of use. By prescribing the
possible discourse moves, not only a common
understanding of the problem among participants
can be achieved, but the fixed semantics makes
it also possible to introduce active computational
support. However, despite the apparent benefits,
such prescribed methods received much criticism.
In particular, the formal structures were the reason
these systems were difficult to use, requiring great
efforts from individuals (Grudin, 1996; Hurwitz
and Mallery, 1995), and proved to be barriers
rather than catalysts for collaboration, as they
slow down the activities (Buckingham Shum,
1996). The formal structure imposed has been the
leading cause for the failure of these systems for
widespread adoption (Nam & Ackerman, 2007).
This is consistent with similar observations in
other fields such as knowledge-based systems,
groupware systems, and software engineering
tools (Shipman & Marshall, 1999). On the other,
simpler online discussion tools, such as Web-based
forums, gained phenomenal adoption precisely
because of their lack of sophisticated formal
structures, and their emphasis on “naturalness of
interactions” (Nam & Ackerman, 2007).
A second motivation for rethinking argumentative
collaboration tools is related to the advent of
was has been termed as the Web 2.0 era (O’Reilly,
2005; Anderson, 2007). Although the term “Web
2.0” stills lacks a precise definition, and the dis-