Conceptual and Computational Issues in the Formalization of Collaboration Scripts

Abstract

Collaboration scripts aim at facilitating social and cognitive processes of collaborative learning by shaping the way learners interact with each other. Computer-supported collaboration scripts generally suffer from the problem of being restrained to a specific learning platform and learning context. Researchers are therefore aiming for a formalization of collaboration scripts on both a conceptual and a computational level. A recently developed framework allows to describe collaboration scripts using a small number of components (participants, activities, roles, resources and groups) and mechanisms (task distribution, group formation and sequencing). Based on these, a formal, graphical modelling tool has been developed and tested with several example scripts.