Trends in online learning communities

In the past decade, there has been a trend toward using the Internet to support traditional classroom teaching and to substitute traditional teaching for online learning. In particular, online learning communities play an important role in distant education. This trend raises important questions about the nature of online learning, the types of learning promoted by online learning communities, the challenges inherent in online learning communities, and the ways in which online learning communities can be improved. Moreover, it is important to understand online learning communities in the context of people's everyday lives. This special issue brings together studies that examine how online learning communities have evolved, the types of online learning communities available, and what design features are useful for promoting vibrant online learning communities. These studies show online learning communities as a complex phenomenon and propose new frameworks and research methods. This introduction outlines the important questions asked in these papers about online learning communities as well as results from empirical studies. It concludes with a set of design considerations that emerge from the studies.