Let's Talk about Talks: Supporting Knowledge Exchange Processes on Wiki Discussion Pages

Abstract

Complex knowledge exchange processes in collaborative knowledge building settings within Wikis can be either supported by providing guidance in form of cognitive group awareness information or by explicitly guiding learners with the help of collaboration scripts. Potentials of analysing and supporting discussants' knowledge building processes focussed on the level of talk pages have still been rarely researched. Our research project comprises a series of three experimental studies and one qualitative study to determine which kind of support is most beneficial for varying types of learners working with Wikis. For this research different fields of computer-supported collaborative learning are integrated and both quantitative and qualitative methods are applied to provide comprehensive analyses in order to provide opportunities for other related research. Presenting and discussing aspects of our research and first results could be beneficial for future research. Our findings suggest that Wiki talk page users can benefit from additional structuring aids.